Kerr Kriisa, Jaxson Robinson are out for Kentucky basketball for Senior Night game against LSU
Senior Night has arrived for the 2024-25 Kentucky men’s basketball team.
Now ranked No. 19 in the nation, the Wildcats will close the home portion of their schedule Tuesday night with a final contest at Rupp Arena against LSU.
The matchup between UK (19-10 overall and 8-8 in SEC play) and LSU (14-15, 3-13) offers Mark Pope’s team the chance to get back in the win column and above .500 in conference play following Saturday’s 16-point home loss to No. 1 Auburn, which has already won the outright SEC regular-season championship.
It’s now confirmed that Pope’s team will be without two players for the home finale against LSU. Fifth-year guards Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson will both be sidelined for Kentucky on Tuesday.
After Saturday’s loss to Auburn, Pope announced Robinson would be undergoing wrist surgery on Wednesday and would miss the remainder of the UK season. As a fifth-year player, Robinson’s college career — which has included three seasons playing for Pope at BYU and Kentucky — is over.
It also appears that Kriisa likely won’t play again for UK this season. The Estonian suffered a foot injury during UK’s comeback overtime win over Gonzaga on Dec. 7 in Seattle. Kriisa underwent surgery for that injury and hasn’t returned to game action for the Wildcats since.
On his weekly radio show Monday night, Pope announced that Kriisa will have one more year of college eligibility remaining and won’t take part in Kentucky’s Senior Night ceremony prior to Tuesday’s game.
Are there any other UK players in danger of missing Tuesday’s contest against LSU?
The answer to that question first arrived Monday night, when the initial SEC injury report was released for the UK-LSU game. That report was updated Tuesday evening.
Which UK basketball players are on the SEC injury report for LSU game?
Kriisa and Robinson are the only UK players listed on the njury report. This means all 10 other Kentucky scholarship players should be good to go against the Tigers.
This group of healthy Cats includes the likes of fifth-year forward Andrew Carr and fifth-year center Amari Williams.
Carr, who previously played two seasons each at Delaware and Wake Forest, is back in the Kentucky starting lineup after being limited by a back injury earlier this year. Carr has now started four straight games for the Wildcats after coming off the bench while he rounded back into form following the worst effects of his back injury.
Against Auburn on Saturday, Carr had a season-high 20 points and went 7-for-11 from the field.
Williams, who previously played four seasons at Drexel, appeared to injure his right foot during the early stages of Kentucky’s last-second win at Oklahoma last week.
But like usual, Williams started for Kentucky in the Auburn game and finished with a double-double with 13 points and 14 rebounds. Williams had seven assists in that game while also doing tremendous defensive work on Johni Broome, the Auburn forward who is a national player of the year candidate.
On Monday — regarding any potential injury concerns — Williams said, “My ankle is good, I’ll be fine. I double-tape it now anyways.”
During his radio show Monday night, Pope also said that fifth-year guard Lamont Butler continues to improve following his return from a left shoulder injury. That injury has kept Butler out for a total of six games this season.
While Kriisa and Robinson are the only Wildcats who will be out injured for the LSU game, the on and off-court effects of Robinson’s season-ending right wrist injury are still being felt within the UK program.
Williams said Kentucky players learned Robinson would be out for the season not too long before Pope announced it publicly on Saturday afternoon.
“We appreciate everything Jax has done, the fight he had to even go out there and still play with, essentially, something torn in his shooting wrist, which isn’t easy to do,” Williams said. “We all love him and hope that he has the best recovery. We know that he’s going to be with us every step of the way.”
“Just seeing him go down like that, it really shows you how precious the game is. You never know when your season could be over just like that. Your college career could be over just like that,” added senior forward Ansley Almonor. “You’ve got to be able to take advantage of every opportunity you have.”
Corey Chest is among LSU basketball players out for Kentucky game
LSU has three players listed as out for Tuesday’s game.
Junior forward Jalen Reed, freshman guard Vyctorius Miller and freshman forward Corey Chest are all out for the Tigers.
Fifth-year guard Dji Bailey was initially listed as probable on the first version of LSU’s injury report, but he was removed from the final version of the report on Tuesday. This indicates that Bailey will play against UK.
Miller averages 8.9 points per game. Among LSU’s active players, Miller is the team’s third-leading scorer and is second among regular LSU players in 3-point shooting at 31.8% for the season
Chest leads LSU in rebounding with an average of 6.6 boards per game. He also averages 1.2 blocks per contest.
With a 3-13 record in conference games, LSU is second-to-last in the SEC standings. Head coach Matt McMahon’s team has lost three straight games.
Prior to LSU’s most recent game — an 81-69 setback at then-No. 24 Mississippi State on Saturday — the only Tiger listed on LSU’s final injury report was Reed, who hasn’t played for LSU since Dec. 3. Reed is out for the season due to a torn right knee ligament.
Reed, a team captain, tore his right ACL during LSU’s win over Florida State in the SEC/ACC Challenge. Prior to that injury, Reed had started all eight of LSU’s games this season, averaging 11.1 points and 6.5 rebounds.
Tuesday’s matchup between Kentucky and LSU will also mark the Rupp Arena return of ex-Cat Daimion Collins, who spent the first two seasons of his college career in Lexington. Last season, Collins missed LSU’s buzzer-beating win over Kentucky in Baton Rouge while dealing with a right shoulder injury that required surgery.
This story was originally published March 3, 2025 at 8:21 PM.
