Rice out a month with foot injury | Lexington Herald Leader

Kentucky sophomore Alyssa Rice will be out at least a month with a stress reaction in her right foot, Coach Matthew Mitchell confirmed on Wednesday. The month-long timeline would have the 6-foot-3 forward, who averaged 2.9 points and 2.7 rebounds a game last season, back in early December.

Her injury will make an already thin Kentucky bench a bit thinner for the exhibition game on Sunday and the opener on Nov. 13 when UK will be without Makayla Epps, who is sitting out both per the terms of her offseason suspension.

That means that five players who have never played in a UK jersey — Evelyn Akhator, Batouly Camara, Maci Morris, Taylor Murray and Ivana Jakubcova — will join returners Alexis Jennings and Janee Thompson and Kyvin Goodin-Rogers, who are both getting back to 100 percent after surgeries.

Epps will be able to return to the floor for the Cats’ trip to No. 15 Arizona State for the second game of the regular season on Nov. 15.