Kentucky coach Mark Pope isn’t sure if or when Jayden Quaintance will return to the lineup.
Quaintance made his debut in a 78-66 win over St. John’s in the CBS Sports Classic on Dec. 20 in Atlanta. He scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds over the Red Storm and made his last appearance in a 73-68 loss to Missouri on Jan. 7. Quaintance has missed the past six games.
Pope said Quaintance is still “dealing with a little bit of swelling” in his knee and “trying to make sure that we get to a great kickoff point.”
“I wish I could predict how that's going to work, so we don't know,” Pope said Thursday. "We actually don't know where we are right now. He's on full shutdown in terms of his on-court work. We're doing everything we can with the performance team.”
The Kentucky coach added that the “immediate moment challenge is that every day he misses, he loses some of the strength that they worked so hard to develop.
“It's a little bit of a complicated bag, but I know his health, long term, is going to be excellent. It's just in the immediate future, we're trying to figure that out.”
Pope said there is a possibility that Kam Williams could return to the court after undergoing surgery on his broken foot last week. Williams suffered the injury in an 85-80 win over Texas on Jan,. 21.
“Kam will be (out) a while,” Pope said. Kam’s (injury) is less long intensive (than Jaland Lowe). With his particular medical treatment, it’s some place pretty soon that he gets to just a pain tolerance.
“I’d like to make all kinds of jokes on that, but we’ll see on Kam. There’s maybe an outside, outside, outside chance that Kam could rejoin us at some point in the season.”
The Wildcats (14-7, 5-3 Southeastern Conference), had a five-game winning streak snapped in an 80-55 loss to No. 18 Vanderbilt earlier this week. It was Kentucky’s lowest offensive scoring output of the season. Pope said the Wildcats “weren’t functioning at a high level” in the latter stages of an offensive set that snowballed onto both ends of the floor.
“We just didn't finish, and then we started to compound our own problems,” he said. "I think we kind of got in our own way a little bit."
PRACTICE CHANGE
In an effort to help his team overcome slow starts in the first half, Pope has changed up his practice routine to prepare for upcoming contests, starting with Saturday’s conference showdown at No. 15 Arkansas.
In conference encounters, Kentucky has trailed at halftime in six of eight games. The Wildcats led Mississippi State and Ole Miss at the break and won both contests. Kentucky is shooting a higher percentage from behind the arc in the second half and averaging 45 points per game after the break, compared to 36 in the first 20 minutes.
“We're going to try and simulate some in game stuff in a different way that we haven't done,” Pope said. “Clearly our first halves we haven't performed the way we want to all season long in high major games. We're just going to try some things and see if some other things we've kind of been taking shots and see if we make some progress.”
Gametracker: Kentucky at Arkansas, 5:30 p.m.CT, Saturday. TV/Radio: ESPN, UK Radio Network on 94.7 The Mix and WiLLiE 102.
Kentucky forward Jayden Quaintance (21) celebrates his dunk against St. John's during the second half of an NCAA basketball game, Saturday, Dec. 20, 2025, in Atlanta. Quaintance, who has missed the past six games, is out for the near future while nursing his injured knee. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
