Mark Pope and the Kentucky Wildcats dodged a terrifying scenario with the injury Jaland Lowe suffered at the Blue-White Game when he dislocated his right shoulder.
Almost immediately when the injury happened,
there was fear that this was going to be, at the very least, something that sidelined Lowe for a month. After all, a full dislocation of a shoulder with no ligament damage still entails a recovery time of 3-4 weeks at the minium. And had there been ligament damage, it could lead to season-ending surgery.
Thankfully, Lowe’s MRI came back clean, and the injury was revealed to be only a slight dislocation.
Now, we have a positive update from the head coach himself.
“Jaland is doing great,” Pope said at the UK Tip-off Luncheon in Louisville. “He has improved so much in the last 48 hours. It’s really, really positive. We’ll kind of proceed with caution, but he is an ultimate competitor, and he’s doing great. He’s going to be in really good shape.”
Saying this, it doesn’t sound like Pope is ready to get Lowe back onto the court this week, so don’t count on seeing the junior point guard play against Purdue.
“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. He’s doing really, really well. We’ve been pleased with his progress the last 48 hours.”
My guess is we won’t see Lowe in either of the two exhibition games. However, it certainly appears a return for the Louisville game on November 11 is very much in play, and we could even see him play in one of the tune-up regular season games vs. Nicholls (November 4) or Valparaiso (November 7).
If nothing else, a return sometime in November seems like a safe bet.
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