Otega Oweh rolled his ankle before Arkansas and Braydon Hawthorne rolled his ankle after Arkansas

It’s past the point of an injury bug infestation at the Joe Craft Center with Kentucky only needing an exterminator at this point — an exorcism is necessary, if we’re being honest. You don’t need me to tell you how deflating this team’s health situation has been, just as it was last season in Mark Pope‘s first year in Lexington.

We know Jaland Lowe, Kam Williams and Jayden Quaintance are all either out for the season or indefinitely, at minimum, with the Wildcats forced to figure out life without that trio of likely starters. That continuity has helped, winning six of the last seven and coming off their best victory of the year at Arkansas. It’s not a favorable position, necessarily, with depth taking a massive hit — despite entering the season as one of the team’s biggest strengths — but at least there is finally some stability.

Or is there? Well, you see, it’s complicated. I’ve got some good news and bad news with that.

The bad news is that Otega Oweh has been dealing with an ankle injury, limiting him in practice ahead of the team’s trip to Fayetteville this past weekend. The good news is that Otega Oweh is a man among boys and put up 24 points on 9-12 shooting with eight rebounds and three assists while fighting through the pain anyway.

Oh, and he played 38 minutes in the 85-77 win. Had they gone to overtime, the senior guard would have gutted it out for another five, too. That’s what makes him TegaTron.

“If we went to overtime, we probably would have tried to play him 43,” Mark Pope said during his weekly radio show on Monday. “He’s playing so good — you think about it, he shot 75 percent from the field. He had one of the toughest defensive assignments that you could have in college basketball today and guard an elite-, elite-level player in Darius Acuff, and doing it in a hostile place.

“He was absolutely terrific, he’s been on a tear over the last six-to-eight weeks. He’s just been unbelievable.”

As far as the injury is concerned, he was limited in practice today, but should be back to normal on Tuesday before suiting up against Oklahoma on Wednesday — and we all know what that matchup means to him. It’d take a lot more than an ankle roll to keep him off the floor in that one after hitting not one, but two game-winners against his old school last season for the Wildcats.

“He’s actually coming off a little bit of an ankle injury — he didn’t practice a whole lot the two days leading up (to Arkansas), we were a little cautious with him today,” Pope continued. “He’ll be full-go tomorrow, but he put together an unbelievable performance.”

The fun doesn’t stop there, my friends. After weeks of Braydon Hawthorne updates regarding his redshirt status and whether or not the former four-star recruit would play this season, Pope played his own version of the good news/bad news game with him.

Good news: Hawthorne is playing well behind the scenes and there is still a path to playing for Kentucky this season.

Bad news: the 6-8 freshman turned his ankle in practice, too, so you can add him to the seemingly endless list of injured Wildcats. Because, why not, right?

“It’s not off the table. The dynamics of our roster change every single day,” Pope said of pulling Hawthorne’s redshirt and playing him this season. “BH was actually terrific in practice today until he sprained his ankle, so we’ll see. We’ll see how that goes.”

Neither update should impact Kentucky’s mid-week matchup vs. Oklahoma or the rematch against Tennessee this weekend, hopefully. Frustrating? Definitely.