Mark Pope says Kentucky is on the ‘uptick’ with figuring out the rotation

Kentucky has dealt with a lot this season, especially when it comes to injuries. The Wildcats have been dealing with an inconsistent rotation thanks to those injuries, and it has caused unfortunate circumstances as the season has gone on.

In December, Kentucky lost Kerr Kriisa to a foot injury, who has been out ever since and is most likely going to use a medical redshirt. Lamont Butler also hurt his ankle during that month, but played through it. But then, he suffered a shoulder injury in January that would have him out for a few weeks with it lingering. Not just that, but Andrew Carr hurt his back last month and is just now getting back to full strength. Then you have Jaxson Robinson, who popped up on the injury report a few weeks ago with a wrist injury, which ultimately flared up and now has him out for the season and required to have surgery.

Those are some of Kentucky’s key players that have been in and out of the rotation, not really in together all at once since December. Now, minus Jaxson Robinson and Kerr Kriisa, Kentucky seems to be trending toward fully healthy for the first time in months, and you could see flashes of the rotation becoming comfortable again in the Wildcats’ win over LSU on Wednesday. Mark Pope says they are on the ‘uptick’ of figuring out the rotation with who they have now, since they have now played two straight games with the same exact rotation.

“We’ve been patch-working so much that we’ve lost a couple of things over the last six weeks. We lost this desperate hunger to get better, because we were just trying to stay afloat. By staying afloat in some ways, I think we did get better but there were so many distractions going on. You know we kind of lost the pace of the game because we are just trying to stay afloat. We are trying to get just enough live bodies to function. …I think were on the uptick. I think we kinda have a vibe for the first time. It feels like we are going to have the same guys out on the floor on Saturday as we did tonight, as we did last Saturday, which we haven’t had that in almost two months. So we are really excited about that and we are really excited about getting back focused in this late stretch to continue getting better and to continue bringing pace to the game is really important to us.”Pope on circumstances due to injuries.

Kentucky is going to have the same rotation for consecutive games for the first time in months, as Pope said, and that is a very big deal for a team looking to get things clicking as they finish the season off on Saturday and head into the postseason.

Having all of these different injuries and guys being in and out of the rotation the past few months certainly probably throws a wrench into running things smoothly, but it seems like the Wildcats are starting to get those things figured out.