Mark Pope provides the latest on Lamont Butler's injury ahead of Colgate and Louisville

Lamont Butler was a late scratch in Kentucky’s matchup against Gonzaga, ruled out shortly before tip-off with an ankle injury. He turned it during the team’s loss at Clemson, Mark Pope calling it ‘a little bit of an issue,’ but was ‘super hopeful’ his starting point guard would be able to give it a go in Seattle.

That didn’t happen, the first-year coach saying the training staff had been ‘working like crazy trying to get him back, but just couldn’t quite get him back healthy where he was able to be on the floor and be explosive.’

The Wildcats took care of business without him, fortunately, storming back to pull off the second-half upset over the Bulldogs. It was an all-time effort, one we’ll all remember for a long, long time. That doesn’t mean, though, the team can afford to have Butler out too long — especially with Kerr Kriisa out indefinitely with a broken foot.

When will Kentucky get its starting point guard back? Pope provided a brief update during his call-in radio show on Monday.

“He’s doing great. He’s dying to get back on the floor,” he said. “Still was not doing anything in practice today, but we’re hoping he’s back soon.”

When asked for a follow-up later in the show, Pope dug a little deeper on the San Diego State transfer. There, he said Butler was officially ‘day-to-day’ with some optimism he’ll be ready for the team’s matchup vs. Colgate on Wednesday and more likely vs. Louisville on Saturday.

“It’s day-to-day right now, we’ll see. I’m hoping to see him on the court some tomorrow, we’ll kind of see how that goes,” he added. “He got some work done today away from the team. He was at practice kind of — his voice was there, but wasn’t doing anything active with us. We’re going to see how he responds tomorrow morning. Saturday feels — but we’re really feeling sooner rather than later.

“It’s a matter of days. I would like those days to include a game on Wednesday. We’ll see how that goes.”