‘Surgery was perfect.’ Mark Pope gives an update on Jaxson Robinson’s wrist injury
It was already known that Kentucky men’s basketball will be without its second-leading scorer for the rest of the 2024-25 season. The college basketball career of UK fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson came to an end during Kentucky’s road win at Oklahoma on Feb. 26, when Robinson reaggravated a right wrist injury that was first suffered in practice on Feb. 7. Kentucky coach Mark Pope announced that Robinson would be done for the season on Saturday afternoon, following Kentucky’s home loss to No. 1 Auburn. As part of that announcement during his post-Auburn press conference, Pope said Robinson would have surgery on his right wrist, which is Robinson’s shooting wrist, on Wednesday. Robinson was scheduled to fly to New York for that surgery, which Pope said would be done by “the world’s No. 1 surgeon doing this particular procedure.”
During his weekly press conference Thursday afternoon, Pope confirmed that Robinson had wrist surgery on Wednesday. “The surgery was perfect,” Pope said of Robinson’s procedure. “I talked to him last night. He was a little tired and a little irritable. But he’s on his way back (to Kentucky) right now.” Pope added that it remains to be seen if Robinson will be able to travel with No. 19 Kentucky for the team’s regular season finale on Saturday afternoon at No. 15 Missouri. “We’ll see how he feels when he gets back, so if he feels up to it,” Pope said of Robinson’s process of
rejoining the team. “I know he’s going to want to be with the team every second he can, and we want him to be.” Robinson — who played and started in 24 games for the Wildcats this season — is expected to be on a three-month recovery timeline. Obviously this means Robinson, who averaged 13 points per game this season, is done playing college basketball. That timeline also means Robinson will miss the NBA Draft Combine, which is scheduled for May 11-18. In a recent NBA draft big board released by ESPN, Robinson was listed as the No. 84 overall player. The Athletic listed Robinson as the No. 99 overall player in its recent NBA draft big board.
Robinson was honored Tuesday night at Rupp Arena during Kentucky’s Senior Night win over LSU. Robinson was one of six departing Wildcats honored on Senior Night, along with Ansley Almonor, Koby Brea, Lamont Butler, Andrew Carr and Amari Williams.
Postgame, Robinson briefly spoke to the Rupp Arena crowd and appeared on UK’s radio broadcast, which were his first public comments since his college basketball career came to an untimely end. “I just want to take this time to shout-out my teammates, coaches, my parents. … Thank you for a great ride this year,” Robinson said to a large cheer from Kentucky fans. Also following the home win over LSU, Pope was asked how his team has handled the news of Robinson’s season-ending injury. “We had a really trying, just all of the emotions you could imagine post-Oklahoma,” Pope began. “It was a late game Central Time. We finished the game and then, you know, get back at 3 o’clock or 4 o’clock in the morning. And are dealing with the emotion of that game. The emotion of Jax’s news which
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we all didn’t really get to get final answers on until the next day. But all suspected. And then run right into Auburn in an early game. That was a super tumultuous time and there was just so much. And then we ran right into tonight.” “I think, the guys are devastated for him and really sad for us because he is such a massive part of this team,” Pope added about Robinson, who shot a career-best 37.6% from 3-point range this season. “… These guys love Jax so much and Jax loves these guys so much and they’ve been on an epic journey together and it’s hard to make sense of why he doesn’t get a chance to finish this with these guys. It’s really brutal.”
