Jaland Lowe injury update: Mark Pope reveals updated timeline for recovery on Kentucky guard

On Oct. 17, Kentucky guard Jaland Lowe suffered a right shoulder injury while playing in the team’s Blue-White scrimmage. He left the scrimmage and underwent an MRI the following day, which came back negative. On Thursday, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope provided an update on Lowe’s recovery.

“Doing good. (Lowe’s) recovery has been epically fast. He’s feeling really good,” Pope said. “He was back shooting yesterday, full speed. We’ll probably keep him out of live contact for at least another week, just to make sure. He’s a massively important part of this season, so we want to make sure he’s healthy.”

On Friday, Kentucky is kicking off its preseason with an exhibition against No. 1 Purdue in Rupp Arena. The exhibition will start at 6 p.m. ET. While it appears Lowe won’t be available for the highly anticipated showdown, he is still expected to play a major role for the Wildcats this season.

After spending two seasons at Pittsburgh, Jaland Lowe transferred to Kentucky this offseason. He was the No. 45 overall player and No. 15 point guard in On3’s 2025 Transfer Portal Player Rankings.

Lowe started in all 31 of his appearances at Pittsburgh last season. He averaged 16.8 points, 4.2 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game, while shooting 37.6% from the field and 26.6% from beyond the arc.

Media members expect Lowe to have another impressive campaign. Last week, Lowe was named a preseason All-SEC Third-Team selection. The only other player who earned all-conference honors for Kentucky was Otega Oweh, who was labeled the preseason SEC Player of the Year.

For Lowe to meet expectations, he’ll need to improve his shooting efficiency. However, Pope is confident Lowe won’t have any trouble putting the ball in the hoop this season.

“He’s an elite-level playmaker on ball screens — I mean, he can fling the ball everywhere on the court, make every pass,” Pope said this summer. “He was our leading 3-point field goal percentage shooter in five-on-five competition this summer — just right under 42 percent. We’re incredibly excited about what we believe he’s going to do in terms of efficiency.”

Pope’s update on Lowe on Thursday isn’t his first. The second-year head coach also seemed optimistic about Lowe’s status earlier this week when asked about his star PG.

“Jaland is doing great. He has improved so much in the last 48 hours, it’s really, really positive,” Pope said at Kentucky’s Tip-Off Luncheon in Louisville. “We’ll kind of proceed with caution but he is an ultimate competitor and he’s doing great and he’s going to be in really good shape. … We’ll see, I’m going to have to be super courageous just to throw him on the court here soon but we’ll see how that plays out but he’s doing really, really well.”