NASHVILL, Tenn. — The 2024-25 Kentucky Wildcats have been absolutely decimated by injuries.
Pushing through a stacked SEC that still has a chance to get 14 teams into the NCAA Tournament, breaking the all-time record set by the Big East in 2011, UK Head Coach Mark Pope said the league would either “tear you to shreds or make you better.”
For Kentucky, the former seems to be the more prevalent of the two, but that’s not to say the second hasn’t also occurred.
With season-ending injuries to backup point guard Kerr Kriisa and point-fill-in Jaxson Robinson, Kentucky’s back-court depth has hardly been deep. Making matters worse, starting point guard Lamont Butler has missed multiple stints with a nagging shoulder injury, with his shoulder taking him out for UK’s SEC quarterfinal matchup with Alabama as well.
In the absences of Butler, Kriisa and Robinson, UK has tried a few strategies, sometimes utilizing big man Amari Williams in a point role, but, more often than not lately, Pope has turned to his freshmen: Travis Perry and Collin Chandler.
Chandler saw the court the most against Oklahoma one day prior, being busted open early in the first half and playing 22 minutes to Perry’s six, but it was a different story against the Tide.
When the starting lineup was called for the Friday-night game, Perry’s name was in it and the Lyon County native would go on to play 30 minutes for the Cats.
“I thought Travis competed hard,” Pope said. “He’s probably our next best option at the point to just give us some options to have any type of play calling or diversity to what we do at all right now.”
While Perry was far from perfect in what turned out to be a 29-point loss, going 2-8 from the field and 1-3 from beyond the arch, he did finish with 11 points and four rebounds, being one of just three Cats with Andrew Carr and Williams to finish in double figures. On top of that, Perry was hardly an outlier with the poor shooting, with the Cats as a team finishing 37.5% from the field and 26.3% from beyond the arch.
“There’s obviously a lot of mistakes we made tonight,” Perry said. “We also did a lot of things well, so I think it is just kind of balancing those and taking the parts where we’re frustrated and turning it into fuel. Turn it into an opportunity to get better. Turn it into an opportunity to get wins down the stretch.”
While few would feel comfortable with the Cats’ odds if Perry and Chandler were the starting point guard duo going into the big dance, the news of Butler likely being back in time for Madness makes the prospect of heavy minutes from the freshmen Cats a potential strength as opposed to a pitfall.
Assuming Butler is back in time for the first round — with Pope saying imaging was “perfect” and that he is “hopeful” Butler will be back in action — Kentucky may be able to live up to the college basketball cliche of having freshmen that are hardly freshmen anymore.
“Every game is a learning experience,” Chandler said. “It just needs to be exponentially fast, learning at a fast pace, that’s what we’ve been challenged to do. We’re going to come back next week better, more confident and ready to go.”
Perry echoed the sentiment.
“I think March is a great time of the year,” he said. “At this point, we’ve got to be able to step up and be ready to make plays.”
With the conference tournament in the books, the Cats will be forced to go into every game knowing a loss would make it their last. March Madness is win or go home.
While the lopsided loss to Alabama was far from promising, it was once again proof of what can happen if a good team goes against another good team and isn’t on its A-game.
For UK’s freshmen that have had to grow up far quicker than many would have anticipated ahead of the season, the objective is clear and the experience the group has had is sure to be invaluable as the Wildcats look to make their first second weekend of the big dance this decade.
“I have full confidence in our team,” Perry said after the loss. “The goal since we got here on campus has been to win (championship) number nine. That’s still the goal, the goal hasn’t changed.”
