With the landscape of collegiate sports constantly changing, accompanied by financial opportunities becoming more and more prevalent, it is very difficult to find athletes that stay loyal to their coaches and actually possess the will of wanting to win a National Championship.
With that, there are select athletes who have to move on from their current schools in search for a more efficient opportunity, one of those being Kentucky guard Jaxson Robinson.
Coming out of Ada High School in Ada, Oklahoma, Robinson kicked off his college career at Texas A&M as a freshman, where he played in 14 games while only averaging 9.7 minutes per game.
Being an Aggie wasn’t the right fit for Robinson, who later transferred to Arkansas for his sophomore season, looking for a more significant role.
As a Razorback, Robinson’s story would rewrite the same chapter, playing just 16 games on an average of 10.2 minutes per contest, suppressing his goal of seeing the court and having a major impact.
That’s where Head Coach Mark Pope entered the scene.
Pope, who was the Head Coach of BYU at the time, solicited Robinson to Provo, Utah, enlightening him with a golden opportunity to play while kickstarting a bond between the two that could simply never be broken.
Robinson saw a significant rise of efficiency in his junior year at BYU, playing in 33 games while averaging 28 minutes per night, finally being granted the opportunity to make an impact.
The following season, still at BYU, Robinson averaged a career-high 14.2 points while seeing the court in 33 different contests on an average of 26.5 minutes per game.
Following the 2023-24 campaign, Pope left BYU and headed east to Lexington to coach at the mecca of college basketball, the University of Kentucky, and, with little to no time to construct a roster, Pope did all he could in building a competitive team. One of the ways he did that was by bringing in Robinson for his fifth and final collegiate season.
Through 24 games played in Kentucky blue, Robinson averaged 13 points per night while structuring a 3-point percentage of 37.6%. The team was able to manufacture a strong resume heading into tournament season, but, while the vibes were high as March approached, disaster struck.
Robinson suffered a serious wrist injury in practice on Feb. 7 and would play 20 minutes against the South Carolina Gamecocks the following day before realizing that he wasn’t fully suited to play.
From that point on, Robinson would miss four-straight games in an effort to let his wrist heal, but on Feb. 26 in Norman, Robinson gave it another go against the Oklahoma Sooners before realizing he would no longer be able to play as surgery would be necessary, closing the curtain on his college basketball career.
“So he knew before halftime (his season was over), but he wasn’t going to indulge in feeling sorry for himself or sad at all,” Pope said. “He was going to be totally focused on this team for the next hour through this incredibly emotional comeback where we needed every ounce of energy that everybody had, and then you just saw it come spilling out of him after, and he’s just a really special human being.”
Kentucky was able to defeat Oklahoma 83-82 and, while the team celebrated its significant road victory, Robinson joined in until reality began to strike him.
“You only recognize how hard that was for him because we went back in the locker room, everybody’s celebrating like crazy. The celebration breaks, and then Jax just bursts into tears — inconsolable tears,” Pope said.
It surely wasn’t the ending that Pope and Robinson expected, but, while the one-and-done Wildcats’ college career came to an unexpected close, the relationship that was built between Pope and Robinson over the past couple of years is sure to be something that is going to stay at the surface for life.
