Plenty of wonderful things happened for Kentucky basketball on Saturday night, when the Wildcats rallied for a top-10 win over Gonzaga in Seattle.
However, the game had at least one significant negative outcome for head coach Mark Pope’s club.
On Sunday evening, the UK program reported that fifth-year guard Kerr Kriisa suffered a foot injury during the game and would need surgery.
According to Kentucky, Kriisa will have surgery in the next days. Kriisa, who previously played at Arizona and West Virginia, is not anticipated to miss the entire season due to the injury.
Kriisa is considered to be “out indefinitely” for the Wildcats. The news is a significant blow to Kentucky’s guard depth.
An experienced veteran who has played in 108 career college basketball games, Kriisa has played in all nine of UK’s games this season. He’s averaging 4.4 points and 3.8 assists per game in his first season as a Wildcat, and made his first UK start on Saturday night against Gonzaga.
Kriisa started against the Bulldogs in place of normal starting point guard Lamont Butler, who was out with a right ankle injury.
Kriisa scored 8 points against Gonzaga, while dishing out 4 assists and gathering 3 rebounds. Kriisa also went over the 1,000-point mark for his college career in the game.
Kriisa left the game with more than eight minutes to go in the second half due to a right foot injury, and didn’t return to the game. After appearing to suffer the injury, Kriisa stepped awkwardly while trying to get back in transition defense and then fell to the floor after trying to contest a Gonzaga basket at the rim.
With Kriisa now out for a yet-to-be determined amount of time, there are several ways that Pope can fill his role.
Freshman guard Travis Perry — the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school boys basketball history — will likely see his name called more frequently as a bench option for the Cats. Perry has played in six games this season, coming off the bench in all of them.
Additionally, the ending to Saturday night’s win over Gonzaga may have given Pope a glimpse into another solution. Fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson, normally a scoring wing, deputized at point guard late in the second half and in overtime against Gonzaga, following Kriisa’s injury. And the results were impressive.
Robinson finished with 18 points and 5 assists to go along with no turnovers. Postgame, Pope joked about how reluctant Robinson has been to play point guard in the past when the duo were together at BYU.
UK, now 8-1 on the season with a pair of top-10 wins on its resume, hosts Colgate at 8 p.m. Wednesday at Rupp Arena.
