Jaxson Robinson's Kentucky basketball career is over. Guard will have surgery on his wrist

Jaxson Robinson’s Kentucky basketball career is over. Guard will have surgery on his wrist

Posted by author March 1, 2025 Basketball

LEXINGTON — Jaxson Robinson‘s season is over. So, too, is his Kentucky basketball — and college — career.

Following Saturday’s loss to top-ranked Auburn at Rupp Arena, UK coach Mark Pope announced Robinson will have surgery on his wrist next week. Since Pope said Robinson — he was the team’s second-leading scorer at 13 points per game, starting all 24 contests in which he appeared — won’t be cleared to return until the end of May at the earliest, it means the fifth-year senior guard has played his final game for the Wildcats.

A former medical student at Ivy League school Columbia University before he shifted into coaching, Pope detailed the exact nature of Robinson’s injury.

“He’s got a torn subsheath to his ECU tendon,” Pope said, “so what’s happening is it’s slipping out. … It’s in a groove and there’s a sheath around it that holds it in place, and that’s just ripped, the distal side of it — I think it’s the distal side of it is just ripped a little bit. So now it’s coming out of the groove.”

Robinson injured his wrist in a practice collision Feb. 7. Though he went on to play the next day in a win over South Carolina, Robinson then sat out the next four contests (Tennessee, Texas, Vanderbilt and Alabama) before he returned to the lineup in Wednesday’s victory at Oklahoma.

In that 83-82 win over the Sooners, however, Robinson only took the floor in the first half; he did not enter the game at any point in Wednesday’s second half. Pope said Robinson aggravated the wrist injury when he took a “hit” during the first half against Oklahoma.

When the injury first flared up last month, Pope said the team knew Robinson would need corrective surgery.

“But he just wanted so badly to play that he rehabbed it and had an injection to try to make it functional,” Pope said.

Finally, Friday night, the Wildcats concluded the time for rehab had come and gone. Robinson was being shut down for the remainder of UK’s season.

“There’s just no way that he’s going to be able to play,” Pope said. “So the good news is that he will go have the surgery with, literally, the world’s No. 1 surgeon doing this particular procedure.

“It’s a three-month-till-100% full recovery. So he’ll be good to go the first of June, the end of May, and continue on with his great basketball career.”

Like Robinson, Koby Brea, Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr are fifth-year seniors. All in their lone season with UK after transferring into the program prior to the 2024-25 campaign.

All were devasted by the news of their teammate’s season-ending injury.

“It’s unfortunate. Super big loss for us as a team, but more importantly, just thinking about him,” said Brea, who had a team-high 21 points in Saturday’s loss. “He’s an amazing human being, so I hate to see him go down like that. … We’re just going to continue to be there for him.

“He’s a super important piece to our team. He’s done great things for us, helped us along the way, and he’s going to continue to do that. But, most importantly, we’ve just got to be there for him.”

He’s still been there for them, too.

“His voice has been big, even when he hasn’t been playing — even now,” Butler said. “This game, his voice was really big on the bench for us in huddles.”

Butler has battled injuries of his own this season, from a sprained ankle in December to a recent shoulder ailment that is forcing him to wear a sizable brace while on the floor.

“Definitely feel for Jax and praying for his speedy recovery,” Butler said. “It’s tough to be out for the season at this point, but we’re a resilient team.”

Carr, who had 20 points (on 7-of-11 shooting from the field) Saturday, said Robinson’s injury has to incite a shift in mentality.

“As tough as it is for Jaxson — we all try to be there for him and we know he would kill and die to be out there with us right now — everybody knows that we need to go out there and do it for him, if not for anything else,” Carr said. “People are going to step up for us and for Jaxson.”

Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.