Jaland Lowe isn’t starting for the Kentucky Wildcats. Should Pope make a change?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Coaches note offense improves with Jaland Lowe on court; starts under review.
- Pope balances Lowe’s health and lineups while considering a starting change.
- If Lowe starts, Collin Chandler risks losing minutes as rotations shift.
By the time Jaland Lowe made his return to the court — after nearly four weeks on the shelf due to a shoulder injury — in Kentucky’s game against Gonzaga last month, the Cats were trailing 7-0, and the tone for what would be an embarrassing loss had already been set.
By the time Lowe checked into the game Saturday at Alabama, his Wildcats were once again on the wrong end of the score — a 9-5 deficit — good shots had been hard to come by, and some offensive frustration had already set in.
Starting Lowe against the Zags almost certainly wouldn’t have made a difference in the final outcome. UK lost by 35 points that night. And having him on the court from the opening tip over the weekend in Tuscaloosa likely wouldn’t have led to a win either. Bama beat Kentucky by 15 in the SEC opener.
Those games are in the past, but there are still plenty to be played in UK’s 2025-26 season, and these slow offensive starts will only lead to more calls for Lowe to enter the starting five.
Mark Pope knows it’s going to be a talking point. In fact, he’s acknowledged — on more than one occasion over the past week — that this has been a topic of conversation among the UK coaching staff as Lowe works his way back onto the court.
The reason a change makes sense is undeniable. Pope concedes that point.
“Clearly, Jaland Lowe is a massively important key to this team. And we function better on the court when he’s on the floor, for sure,” he said before the Alabama game.
Lowe was clearly Kentucky’s top point guard coming into the season. Pope and Lowe’s UK teammates placed the “PG1” tag on him before summer practice was even finished.
But he suffered a right shoulder injury in the team’s Blue-White scrimmage in October that sidelined him for the rest of the preseason, plus the Cats’ 2025-26 opener. Then he reinjured the shoulder two days after UK’s loss at Louisville, putting him out of action until the Gonzaga game three and a half weeks later.
While Lowe was out, the Wildcats struggled mightily to generate anything resembling a functional offense against the good teams on their schedule. The ball often stuck — or danced around in the halfcourt, passes leading to nothing — when Lowe was on the bench.
Even in the Gonzaga debacle, the Cats opened up the floor more when Lowe entered the game. But by that point, they’d missed plenty of shots, and — coming three days after a loss to North Carolina in which they ran ice cold in the second half — UK simply never got going.
Lowe had 13 points in his next shot at a quality opponent, sparking Kentucky to a win over Indiana with several big plays in the second half.
The following week, after playing just seven seconds in the first half of a win against St. John’s due to another shoulder injury, Lowe was on the floor for the majority of the second half in what turned out to be the best 20 minutes of UK basketball this season. His presence and playmaking were big reasons why the Cats looked so good that day.
Lowe was also responsible for some of Kentucky’s best moments Saturday afternoon.
He scored a season-high 21 points. He made plays at the rim. He opened up the floor for teammates. He had two driving layups in the final minutes — each of them cutting Alabama’s lead to nine points, offering a final glimmer of hope for the Cats — but UK lost in the end.
Should he have been out there in the beginning?
Why isn’t Jaland Lowe starting?
Alabama guard Aden Holloway, the Tide’s leading scorer with 26 points Saturday and one of the best backcourt players in the SEC, was singing Lowe’s praises after the game.
“He’s a good player,” Holloway said. “He’s really tough to stay in front of. Super quick-twitch. Fast. He’s got a great pace. He’s not just looking for his own shot. He’s looking to create for others. I think he was really good for them today. He was tough to guard, for sure.”
Lowe is the only Wildcat capable of much of what Holloway described.
No one else can get into the paint like he can. No one else can get out in transition like he can. And he played 27 minutes in Tuscaloosa, proving he can stay on the court for long stretches.
Other than the first 1:20 of the half and the final 1:20 of the half — when he checked out for good, the game already decided — Lowe was on the bench for only 68 seconds after halftime.
Pope was asked again after the game if he’d thought about starting Lowe.
“We’re considering that, all the time,” he said.
It was a continuation of his thoughts from earlier in the week, when Pope addressed the topic on his weekly radio show. He noted that the UK staff has been trying to limit Lowe’s exposure to contact in the team’s practices, which means he’s spent substantial portions of those sessions watching from the sidelines.
Since others are practicing more as a unit, Pope has decided to start those players in the actual games, with Denzel Aberdeen, Otega Oweh and Collin Chandler emerging as his go-to backcourt to begin games.
“The thinking behind that is, ‘Let’s protect the integrity of the group that we have getting most of the reps in practice, to actually be able to go perform on the court.’ Just to give some continuity,” Pope said. “But that might not be the right answer. We’re gonna kind of explore that as we go.”
A similar case is unfolding with another blue-blood program.
Kansas coach Bill Self has Darryn Peterson — an early favorite to be the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA draft — in his backcourt, but the freshman guard has been dealing with injuries that have limited him to just five games so far this season.
Peterson played for the first time in three weeks Saturday. He started KU’s game against UCF and scored 23 points — while playing 18 minutes — in the first half alone. But he was limited to just five minutes after halftime, checking out for good with 10:55 remaining due to leg problems.
UCF beat Kansas 81-75 with the Jayhawks’ best player watching the end from the bench.
Afterward, Self acknowledged that Peterson’s legs had been bothering him more as games progressed. The KU coach has also made it clear that his star freshman is on a “minutes restriction.”
“That’s been a concern, that his legs feel differently in the second half,” Self said after the loss to UCF. “A lot of that I think today is if I could have played him less in the first half, would he have been more available in the second half? And I think the answer is yes.”
But Pope has made it clear that Lowe is not on a “minutes restriction” for the time being, and only Oweh played more in the second half against both Alabama and St. John’s. And the fact that Pope is publicly questioning his decision not to start his top point guard might mean he’s getting closer to making a switch.
If Lowe does slot into a starting role, Chandler appears to be the most likely Wildcat to hit the bench. The sophomore guard was arguably UK’s best player in the early going, but he’s struggled mightily since.
Chandler was scoreless in 19 minutes against St. John’s and tallied just three points in 18 minutes at Alabama. Over his past four games, Chandler has just 11 total points. He’s shooting 3 for 17 from the floor in those four games, including several forced shots near the basket.
To be clear, Lowe’s presence hasn’t been an antidote for UK’s overall playmaking woes. He played plenty Saturday, yet the Cats managed just nine assists. But team chemistry isn’t built overnight. That remains a work in progress, and it’s logical that Kentucky would more quickly find that foundation if its top point guard was on the floor with his most talented teammates as much as possible.
“We’ll kind of continue to try and strike the right balance with keeping him as healthy and as protected as we can,” Pope said. “And also getting him on the court as much as we can.”
He said that a few days before the Alabama game. Heading into the SEC home opener against Missouri on Wednesday night, the deliberations continue.
This story was originally published January 5, 2026 at 6:00 AM.
