Point guard has been a position of 'hope' and 'frustration' for Mark Pope, but he pledges 'creators' for next season

First, it was Lamont Butler (shoulder, ankle) and Kerr Kriisa (foot) in year one, thrusting Jaxson Robinson into the starting point guard role before he went down with a season-ending injury (wrist) himself. With Butler in and out, Kentucky’s 7-foot, 262-pound center, Amari Williams, had to step in and save the day.

Then in year two, freshman signee Acaden Lewis decommitted on April 10 — just 12 days before the transfer portal closed. Denzel Aberdeen was brought in as his replacement on that 11th day, April 21, joining Jaland Lowe in the backcourt. Travis Perry left for Ole Miss in the portal, too, killing a depth option off the bench. Then Lowe went down with a season-ending shoulder injury after playing just nine games as a Wildcat, leaving Aberdeen as the lone primary ball-handling option, despite coming in as an off-ball combo guard.

Aberdeen was terrific and deserves endless praise for his on-the-fly adjustment, but that doesn’t mean Mark Pope is thrilled about how things unfolded at point guard this season or last, no matter how much we all loved Butler. They went in with clear plans and those plans failed due to health disasters.

“This point guard is a position where we’ve had so much hope and we’ve had so much frustration in terms of health,” Pope said during his weekly radio show Monday evening. “In fact, if you think about it, we had Acaden Lewis here as a signed commit. Actually, his family on their own engaged in helping to recruit Jaland Lowe. And then once that was (done), we felt like, ‘Man, we have the greatest one-two punch at point guard.’ We felt like those guys would have played on the court beautifully together. And then late, after that process was done, for his own personal reasons, family reasons, they decided to go.

“We had Travis Perry, who had actually started at the point for us the year before, and with what guys felt like was congestion or whatever reason, personal reasons — I don’t want to get into personally what these guys had, but Travis decided to leave. So then, late, at the last minute, we’re kind of in this point where we thought we were abundantly prepared at that position, and it turned out that — and still with that, Jaland has such a great history of playing every game, or finding a way to compete in most games. We just had some misfortune there.”

Those adjustments forced Aberdeen to play on the ball and Jasper Johnson to serve as his backup at point guard — neither brought in to play that specific role. What made those situations worse is the fact that you also took away what Aberdeen and Johnson did best as certified bucket-getters.

“What’s interesting is threes come through ball movement, and they come through creators. They come through creators, right? Man, what we just we lost that — so not only do you lose J-Lowe as a primary creator, but you lose Denzel as a two guard creator and you lose Jasper Johnson. Jasper Johnson was actually one of our most capable passers, but we lose him as a two guard creator, because he’s under so much duress as a primary ball handler.

“Those things were kind of baked in the cake, and it just didn’t work out that way.”

Addressing that misfortunate is one of the program’s top priorities this offseason, knowing just how much it killed the Wildcats in the Round of 32 loss to Iowa State with 20 turnovers. After such a hot start with shooting and ball movement, the Cyclones found their window of opportunity and attacked with success in the form of a 19-point blowout win.

They know they have to get that right entering year three for Pope in the biggest offseason of his career, finding the creators this roster was missing in 2025-26. What ended their season will be what keeps their hope of No. 9 alive going into next year.

“Health is at a premium for us. Of course, that has been an issue. It’s not unique to us, but there’s nobody that has been challenged quite like us,” he said. “… The point guard position is really important for us. It’s really important for me. It’s something that steadies you. Right now, where we ended up on our team, there’s a metric out there that judges players to be a creator, a dual threat, or essentially a user — what I mean is a finisher of possessions. On our roster this year, the best creator we had was a 2.3 by the metric. … Last year, Lamont Butler was a 1.6 and Amari Williams was a 1.8.

“We are desperate to bring creators here to Kentucky. Creators are people that earn shots for teammates and could go earn shots for themselves. There’s a bunch of other metrics that go into it. The best teams are creator-rich, and unfortunately for us, due in large part to the changes that we underwent at the point guard spot, that was a place where we were we struggled all year long.

“Creators deal with pressure. Creator earn guys better shots. Creators make shots for themselves, and that’s a space where we’re going to have a high, high focus as we build this roster for next season.”