Kentucky’s starting point guard suffers injury during Blue-White Game
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kentucky basketball player Jaland Lowe suffered an apparent right shoulder injury.
- Lowe suffered the apparent injury during UK’s annual Blue-White Game at Memorial Coliseum.
- UK will play Purdue in an exhibition game on Oct. 24 at Rupp Arena.
Kentucky basketball’s expected starting point guard left the team’s intrasquad scrimmage early with an apparent right shoulder injury Friday night.
Jaland Lowe — a 6-foot-1 point guard who transferred to UK this offseason after spending two seasons at Pittsburgh — appeared to suffer the injury during the second period of Kentucky’s Blue-White Game at Memorial Coliseum in Lexington.
Lowe was dribbling the ball on the left wing, beyond the 3-point arc, when he got tangled up with UK senior guard Otega Oweh, the preseason SEC Player of the Year, who was defending Lowe.
Oweh’s left hand hooked Lowe’s right forearm while Lowe was dribbling the ball with his left hand. As the ball bounced away from both players, Lowe crashed the ground while grabbing his right shoulder with his left hand.
Lowe, who is a left-handed player, stayed on the ground for nearly a minute while he was attended to by UK trainers. Lowe was able to get up and walk off the Memorial Coliseum court under his own power, but he kept his right arm straight by his side as he shuffled off the court.
After Lowe retreated to the locker room, UK’s senior athletic trainer for men’s basketball, Brandon Wells, emerged and had an extended conversation with Kentucky coach Mark Pope while the Blue-White game continued.
Following the Blue-White Game, Pope was asked about Lowe’s apparent injury during a press conference.
“He tweaked his shoulder, so we’ll see,” Pope said.
Pope added that Lowe missed the rest of the Blue-White Game as a precaution. Pope said Lowe will get imaging for the injury Saturday.
“(We’ll) kind of see how it responds tomorrow,” Pope added. “He’s an incredibly tough young man. So I’m sure, whatever it is, he’ll battle through it well.”
If Lowe is to miss extended time for the Wildcats, then a bevy of guards will be at Pope’s disposal to help pick up the slack at the point. Freshman Jasper Johnson, a five-star recruit and Central Kentucky native, is likely to figure into these plans in a big way.
“I’m very comfortable. I know (Lowe) may go down, but we are a team,” Johnson said Friday. “I know everybody’s willing to step up to that role. I know he’s a big part of our team right now, playing the one, being the head of our snake. We’re all still being with him through this process. We don’t know much in detail of his injury, but I know me, as well as the rest of my teammates, are all ready to step up and do whatever we need to do to get wins.”
Kentucky is set to host Purdue in an exhibition contest next Friday night at Rupp Arena. That’ll be a matchup between the Wildcats, No. 9 in the preseason AP Poll, and the Boilermakers, the No. 1-ranked team in that poll.
UK will also play Georgetown University on Oct. 30 in another exhibition contest, also at Rupp, before the season opener on Nov. 4 at home against Nicholls.
This story was originally published October 17, 2025 at 9:31 PM.
