On Wednesday during his pre-Ohio State press conference, Mark Pope provided a brief update on the injury status of Kerr Kriisa. Kriisa went down with a jones fracture against Gonzaga and underwent surgery.

Discussing injury updates, moving onto Kerr Kriisa. Kriisa had surgery almost immediately after the Cats returned home from their loss at Clemson. In an interview last week, Pope predicted Kriisa would miss the next 6 weeks of basketball, even though he didn’t seem confident in that prediction.

In yesterday’s press conference, Pope informed BBN that Kerr recently started getting back in the weight room, “doing strength and conditioning”. Pope went on to joke that the UK coaching staff’s “goal is to make the weight room so unpleasant that he’s wanting to get back on the court” as soon as he can.

Whether intentionally or not, it does seem like Pope is giving BBN reason to believe Kerr will return before the 6-week initial prediction is over. But in the end, Pope could only say that they hope Kerr “returns sooner rather than later” but at the end of the day, “there are some things that are out of our control.”

Joe Lunardi’s mind is already racing with potential NCAA tournament matchups, and some of them are sure to spark controversy.

In his latest projections, Lunardi has the Auburn Tigers as the overall No. 1 seed, and he notes, “Everyone is talking about the SEC—and for good reason.” Alongside Auburn at the top of the bracket are the Kentucky Wildcats and Tennessee Volunteers.

Given the SEC’s dominance this season, it’s hard to imagine a part of the bracket without multiple SEC teams. But, of course, excitement is part of the equation when shaping these potential matchups on the road to a National Championship.

One possibility would be a showdown between the 1-seed Kentucky Wildcats and the 9-seed Arkansas Razorbacks in the second weekend of the tournament.

For Kentucky fans, the excitement of earning a 1-seed is something they desperately want to get back to. It’s been nearly a decade since the Wildcats last achieved this feat, back in 2015. And with coach Mark Pope at the helm, it feels like Kentucky is poised to break through and overcome the hurdles that have held them back for the past few seasons.

However, on the other side of that projection is an interesting potential matchup with an “underdog” Arkansas team coached by John Calipari. Despite Calipari’s struggles recently in the tournament, a second-round game against a better seeded team is just the type of matchup Calipari’s squads often thrive in. After all, Kentucky made deep tournament runs in the past after being seeded right in that range. Let’s not forget the Wichita State shocking upset, along with other runs in the tournament by Cal teams that probably shouldn’t have been there. 

We’ll have to wait until March to see how the bracket shakes out, but one thing is for sure: Kentucky will likely land on the toughest side of the bracket with some of the more interesting matchups there can be. 

Kentucky and Mark Pope are looking to make some changes, however, not the changes you may be thinking.

The fans have been asking for quite some time for some new uniform styles, well Mark Pope has heard you. When asked about the possibility of alternate uniforms, Mark Pope said, “Put it in a request. I’ll try and make it happen,” he said. “… If we try and go with the black — I can’t promise you I can deliver on a specific game. … I love it, let me work on it.”

Kentucky debuted an all-black alternate uniform in 2022 but the new look just never stuck. Kentucky and Coach Pope could be looking into adding multiple different styles of alternate colors with the main alternate being black, a grey alternate is also a strong possibility.

As shown above, this is the look of the all-black Alternate uniforms Kentucky debuted in 2022. If these were to make a return, I would expect a similar look to this. Mark Pope once again shows that he is a man of the people!