No. 19 Kentucky has lost three of its last five games and is coming off an uncompetitive 94-78 home loss to No. 1 Auburn on Saturday.
The Wildcats (19-10, 8-8 Southeastern Conference) will try to get back in the win column when they play their final home game of the regular season Tuesday night against LSU (14-15, 3-13) in Lexington, Ky.
Kentucky first-year coach Mark Pope said his team had “actually been making strides,” but against Auburn “we regressed a little bit.” He added that Saturday was “a really, really terrible day for us.”
The Wildcats’ situation became more challenging with Pope’s announcement that senior guard and second-leading scorer Jaxson Robinson (13 points per game) will have surgery on his wrist and will miss the rest of the season.
“Clearly, we are dealing with some complicated rotation changes,” Pope said. “But that’s where our life is.”
Robinson was injured during practice Feb. 7. He played through the problem the next day in a victory against South Carolina, then missed the next four games. He returned to play in the first half of a victory at Oklahoma last Wednesday, scoring seven points, but he missed the second half after aggravating the injury, and the decision to have surgery was made Friday.
Fellow senior Koby Brea called the absence of Robinson “a super big loss for us as a team.”
But Pope said the ability of third-leading scorer Lamont Butler (12.4 ppg) to play through a shoulder injury “was probably the best thing for us” against Auburn.
“He got two more games to really get to the elite level that he’s played at for most of the season,” Pope said.
Kentucky will visit Missouri on Saturday before heading into the SEC tournament.
LSU had some absences of its own to deal with in an 81-69 loss at then-No. 24 Mississippi State on Saturday. Leading rebounder Corey Chest (6.6 per game) missed the contest because of a foot injury, and fourth-leading scorer Vyctorius Miller (8.9 ppg) played just seven minutes before being sidelined by a leg injury.
Meanwhile, forward Derek Fountain played for the first time since becoming ill before a win at Oklahoma two weeks ago and scored nine points, making all four of his field-goal attempts.
The Tigers were even more dependent than usual on season scoring leader Cam Carter, who had 23 points against the Rebels, his second-highest total in the last nine games, and he shot 9 of 16 from the floor and 5 of 10 from beyond the arc.
“In the first half, we really wanted to try and free him up off some screens,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “I thought he did a nice job in his movement without the ball there. We got him a pin-in corner three in transition. He got us off to a great start on the offensive end. I thought we got really good looks in the first half.”
Carter scored 18 of his points to help the Tigers take a 37-35 halftime lead, but they couldn’t keep up in the second half. Carter’s teammates finished 4 of 26 on 3-pointers.
“Probably as a group we didn’t shoot it at a high-enough percentage (39.1), especially behind the 3-point line,” McMahon said.
–Field Level Media
