Kentucky basketball guard Jaland Lowe is out for the remainder of the season
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- Kentucky coach Mark Pope provided an injury update on Jaland Lowe and Jayden Quaintance.
- Lowe has a right shoulder injury that requires surgery and is out for the season.
- Quaintance is managing swelling in his knee that caused him to miss UK’s most recent game.
During his weekly press conference Monday afternoon, UK basketball coach Mark Pope played things close to the vest when it came to injury updates on guard Jaland Lowe and forward Jayden Quaintance.
But, during his weekly radio show Monday night, Pope had more to say on both players.
In the biggest news of the night, Pope said Lowe, Kentucky’s starting point guard, will have shoulder surgery and be out for the remainder of the 2025-26 season.
Lowe has dealt with a lingering right shoulder injury for several months, dating back to the preseason. In total, Lowe has injured his right shoulder four times since October. The most recent occurrence of Lowe injuring his right shoulder came in the early stages of Saturday night’s home win over Mississippi State.
Pope added that there’s positive news concerning Quaintance’s injury outlook after he experienced swelling in his knee, which forced him to miss Saturday’s game against the Bulldogs.
Pope said the decision for Lowe to have season-ending surgery came following a lengthy Monday afternoon meeting that included members of the UK coaching staff, Lowe, Lowe’s parents and UK medical personnel. Pope described the meeting as “really emotional.”
“We have pushed the envelope on (Lowe) in every way,” Pope told UK radio broadcaster Tom Leach on Monday night. “You think about since the Blue-White scrimmage, he’s dislocated his shoulder three times now. Every time it’s been with less and less contact. He’s tweaked it in a game, and tweaked it once in practice to add on top of that. We searched, tried, every possible reasonable scenario to have him continue on.”
Additionally, Pope said Lowe will have about a six-month rehab process following the surgery to get back to 100% health.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen a guy go through more in such a short span,” Pope said of Lowe. “Our doctors were telling him two dislocations and one stinger ago that probably the only avenue was to get surgery. And he just demanded, ‘No, I’m not. I’m coming back. We’re going to fix this.’ Finally, it got to the point where it just wasn’t possible.”
Pope stressed there was “really no other alternative” for Lowe, who appeared in nine games with two starts for the Wildcats this season after the junior transferred to UK during the offseason from Pittsburgh. While with the Panthers, Lowe missed just one regular-season game over the course of two seasons.
This marks the second straight season that Kentucky has had a point guard suffer a season-ending injury. The same fate occurred to Kerr Kriisa last season, also after only nine game appearances for the Cats. UK guard Jaxson Robinson also saw his season cut short in 2024-25 due to a wrist injury.
Despite Lowe’s season-ending surgery, Pope said Monday night that he expects Lowe to take on some practice responsibilities for the Wildcats, including work with the program’s scout team.
“We’ll dig deep and overload him on opportunities for him to grow in every way possible,” Pope said.
With regard to Quaintance, Pope said Kentucky will be taking a wait and see approach. The sophomore forward has only appeared in four games for the Wildcats this season while recovering from a torn ACL he suffered last February as a freshman at Arizona State. Quaintance underwent surgery for that torn ACL injury in March.
“We’ll see over the next days how his situation resolves,” Pope said of Quaintance, who is a projected lottery pick in the 2026 NBA draft.
Kentucky’s official injury outlook for its next game — a Wednesday night contest at LSU — will come into clearer focus Tuesday night. UK must send its preliminary availability report for the LSU game to the SEC by 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, and the report will be made public shortly afterward.
LSU is the only SEC school without a win in league play this season. The Tigers have dropped contests at Texas A&M and Vanderbilt, as well as at home to South Carolina. Head coach Matt McMahon’s team is also dealing with some injury woes of its own. Star junior guard Dedan Thomas Jr. has missed all three conference games for the Tigers due to a lower leg injury. Thomas leads the SEC with 7.1 assists per game.
LSU has also been without junior forward Jalen Reed since late November due to a season-ending left Achilles tendon injury. Reed averaged 11.1 points per game across eight contests for the Tigers last season before his campaign was cut short by a torn ACL, which was also a season-ending injury.
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This story was originally published January 12, 2026 at 6:13 PM.
