Jaland Lowe will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery

Kentucky will not have junior point guard Jaland Lowe the rest of the season, head coach Mark Pope announced Monday.

“We just finished a long meeting with Jaland Lowe — a really emotional meeting, actually,” he said. “… We have pushed the envelope on him in every way. … He’s dislocated his shoulder three times now, and every time it’s been with less and less contact. He’s tweaked it in games and tweaked it once in practice to add on top of that.

“We searched, tried every possible reasonable scenario to have him continue on, but just made the wise and right decision today that he’ll go have surgery, and so he’ll be out for the season. It’ll be multiple months — six months, give or take — rehab for him to get back to 100 percent health. … It’s a sad day for us, but it’s the exact right thing to do. There’s really no other alternative, and it’s what has to happen.”

The Pittsburgh transfer reinjured his right shoulder in the team’s win over Mississippi State over the weekend, leaving the floor following a defensive stop to go straight to the locker room and did not rejoin the team on the bench until the second half. Out for the game, he kept his arm tucked into his warmup shirt.

Get the Daily On3 Newsletter in your inbox every morning

By clicking "Subscribe to Newsletter", I agree to On3's Privacy Notice, Terms, and use of my personal information described therein.

Pope said after the game Lowe would explore all of his options and did not rule out season-ending surgery, but wanted to see how his shoulder responded coming out of the weekend.

Lowe’s season ends averaging 8.0 points, 2.4 assists and 2.1 rebounds on 35.8 percent shooting, 20.8 percent from three and 70.4 percent at the line in nine games played. He scored in double figures in three straight outings vs. Indiana and St. John’s, then at Alabama.

He will apply for a medical redshirt, potentially giving him two additional seasons of eligibility.

“Once you set foot on the court for one second during one official game, your redshirt is burned — but there is a medical redshirt avenue,” Pope said. “So that’ll be something. Every medical redshirt candidate has to pursue a waiver at the end of the season, and he certainly would qualify in every conceivable way. So we expect that’s a possibility for him.”

Get well soon, Jaland. Next man up.