Lamont Butler returns for Kentucky basketball in SEC home game against South Carolina
The UK men’s basketball team is in desperate need of an SEC win.
The No. 14 Wildcats are 15-7 overall, 4-5 in conference games and have lost four of their last five contests in the SEC, which is universally regarded as the best league in men’s college hoops.
Some potential relief awaits UK on Saturday afternoon, when the Wildcats return to the friendly confines of Rupp Arena to host South Carolina (10-12, 0-9). The Gamecocks are the only SEC school without a win in league play.
But, Mark Pope’s UK squad will have to try and get back on track while fighting several injury issues.
The current state of affairs for the Wildcats with regard to injuries came into focus Friday night, when the SEC injury report was released for both Kentucky and South Carolina ahead of Saturday’s game. The injury report was updated Saturday morning, with some major news included for UK.
Here’s the latest news on which players are available, and which players aren’t, for Kentucky and South Carolina on Saturday.
Lamont Butler returns for Kentucky basketball
Kentucky basketball had three players listed on the SEC injury report when it first came out Friday night. By Saturday morning, that group had been reduced to two players.
Point guard Kerr Kriisa is listed as out. He hasn’t played for UK since early December.
Fellow point guard Lamont Butler was initially listed as questionable on UK’s injury report, but Butler was removed from the injury report Saturday morning.
Butler will start for the Wildcats against the Gamecocks after a three-game injury absence.
New to the injury report, and also initially listed as questionable, is Jaxson Robinson, the team’s second-leading scorer. Robinson, a fifth-year guard, has started all 22 games for the Wildcats and there was no mention this week prior to Friday night’s release of the SEC injury report that the 6-foot-6 grad student was under duress.
On Saturday morning, Robinson’s designation was changed to “game time decision.” Robinson will also start for UK against South Carolina. His shooting wrist was wrapped with tape during pregame warmups.
On UK’s pregame radio show Saturday, Pope said Robinson injured his wrist on Friday. Pope said that medical imagining came back clean for Robinson’s injury.
Robinson is averaging 13.6 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game and leads Kentucky in minutes played per game (29.2). He also leads the Wildcats in made 3-point baskets with 59. Robinson has made at least three 3-pointers in seven straight games.
But the bigger injury news is the return of Butler, a fifth-year guard who has missed five games for UK this season.
A defensive standout who previously starred at San Diego State, Butler missed two games for UK in December in addition to his current three-game stretch of absences.
While those December games were missed after Butler suffered an ankle injury, his recent injury woes are related to a left shoulder injury that was suffered during a Jan. 14 home win over Texas A&M.
Butler initially played through the injury, but he wasn’t the same. In his most recent performance, Butler tied his career high with six turnovers as UK lost at Vanderbilt on Jan. 25.
During his weekly press conference Thursday afternoon, Pope said Butler was planning on going through non-contact drills in UK’s Thursday practice, before assessing how Butler felt Friday.
Pope indicated his desire is for Butler to return to game action for Kentucky in a manner that decreases the potential for any injury setback. This is a similar approach that Pope and UK took with fifth-year forward Andrew Carr, who has battled a back injury in recent weeks.
“I’m a little of the same frame of mind that I was with Andrew,” Pope said Thursday. “Where I would like to get (Butler) back in a position where we have the best chance of not having another setback.”
Pope declined to put a specific time frame on when Butler could return to the court, although Butler will be back on the floor for the Cats on Saturday.
“(We’re) kind of making game-time decisions every day on what the next step is,” Pope said.
Butler is averaging 13.2 points, 4.8 assists and 1.8 steals per game this season for UK, and his perimeter defense is immensely valued by Kentucky, which enters Saturday’s slate of games ranked 108th in the nation in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom. In SEC play, UK ranks last in the 16-team league in adjusted defensive efficiency, defensive turnover percentage and two-point field goal percentage defense.
Kentucky is 3-2 this season with Butler out of action.
Following last weekend’s home loss to former UK head coach John Calipari and Arkansas, Pope expressed uncertainty about when Butler may return to the floor for UK.
“There’s a lot to it that I’m not going to share, because it’s his stuff. But we’re trying to figure out how to proceed right now,” Pope said last Saturday night of Butler. “So, we’ll see. I would tell you more, but we just really, genuinely don’t know yet. So we’ll figure out more in the next couple weeks. I assume, at some point, we’re gonna take another shot at this and see how it goes. And we’ll kind of play it by ear.”
Things are more complicated with Kriisa, the veteran guard who previously played at Arizona and West Virginia. Kriisa injured his foot during the second half of Kentucky’s overtime win over Gonzaga in Seattle on Dec. 7 and hasn’t played for the Wildcats since.
The 6-foot-3 guard from Estonia had surgery on his foot a few days after that game.
On Thursday, Pope provided an injury update on Kriisa, and it wasn’t all that encouraging.
“He’s not doing anything active on the court yet,” Pope said of Kriisa, who averaged 3.8 assists per game in nine games played for Kentucky this season. “But he’s doing much more active stuff in the weight room and in the training room, and so the next step is just to see what that response is like. It’s a matter of how quickly and if you can get over the soreness in that step.”
After that, Pope said the next step in Kriisa’s return would be to do some light on-court work, and to assess the soreness at that point.
“He’s still limited to the training room and the weight room,” Pope added about Kriisa. “And at some point, when he meets those pain-threshold benchmarks, he’ll move onto the court and start a light process there.”
With Kentucky down its top two options at point guard, Pope and the UK coaching staff have gotten creative when it comes to forming backcourt pairings.
Kentucky’s three off-ball guards — Robinson, Otega Oweh and Koby Brea — have been used in recent weeks, with Robinson often acting as the point guard. UK has also found success utilizing 7-foot center Amari Williams is a ball handling role.
Williams made Kentucky basketball history during Tuesday’s loss at Ole Miss, recording a triple-double with 12 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists. This was only the fourth triple-double in UK basketball history, and the first since Isaiah Briscoe in December 2016.
Additionally, Kentucky’s three freshmen this season — guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry, along with forward Trent Noah — have seen significant playing time recently due to Kentucky’s injury scramble.
Perry is averaging 7.9 minutes per game in SEC play. Chandler played 15 minutes at Tennessee and 17 minutes against Arkansas. Noah — who was previously committed to and signed to play at South Carolina, before asking out and joining Pope’s first UK team — just logged a career-high 13 minutes against Ole Miss.
Which players are out for South Carolina basketball?
The only player listed on South Carolina’s injury report for Saturday’s game against UK is fifth-year guard Myles Stute, who is out for the contest.
On Jan. 7, South Carolina announced that Stute was diagnosed with a “left lower leg deep vein thrombosis” and would be out indefinitely due to a blood clot.
Up to that point, Stute had played in all 14 of South Carolina’s games this season, with per-game averages of 5.4 points, 2.7 rebounds and 1.1 assists. Stute has spent the last two seasons at South Carolina after previously playing three seasons at Vanderbilt.
The Gamecocks have had a week off since they last played a game. South Carolina lost by four points at home to Texas A&M last Saturday night.
Saturday
South Carolina at No. 14 Kentucky
When: Noon
TV: ESPN2
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: South Carolina 10-12 (0-9 SEC), Kentucky 15-7 (4-5)
Series: Kentucky leads 54-15
Last meeting: South Carolina won 79-62 on Jan. 23, 2024, in Columbia, S.C.
This story was originally published February 7, 2025 at 8:30 PM.
