Mark Pope hopes more rest will help Andrew Carr's back. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Kentucky coach Mark Pope is not one to make excuses.
Rather than indicate not having injured Andrew Carr because of his back problems was a reason for UK’s 74-69 loss at Vanderbilt Saturday, Pope praised Anlsey Almonor for hitting four 3-pointers in more extended playing time and Trent Noah for grabbing four rebounds and scoring two points in 12 minutes of playing time.
Pope said even without Carr, Kentucky was still good enough to win. However, Carr clearly was limited a week earlier in a home loss to Alabama and then only watched from the bench at Vanderbilt.
“He wants to play so bad, and we’re just kind of seeing a decline in his performance because there’s just so much you can’t do with his back. And so we were trending in the wrong direction,” Pope said.
The UK coach had hoped a full week between games would help Carr. Instead, Pope seems to understand he has to think long term and let Carr take time off.
“These calls are really hard. What we’re hoping is that we can get to a space sometime in the next few weeks, next few days, somewhere where we have enough confidence that … he hasn’t practiced in a couple of weeks, and every game is like, he just gets beat up so bad, it’s back to square one where it’s hard for him to walk essentially,” Pope said.
“We’re hoping that with more time, we can get him to some sustainable place where we can endure a practice and endure a game and not be back to zero but we’ll see if that actually happens.”
Kentucky has to play at No. 6 Tennessee Tuesday and then will return home to host Arkansas and John Calipari in what is a must-win for the Kentucky fan base. Pope said there is no easy answer about when Carr will be ready to play.
“You’re dealing in percentages. You’re not dealing in guarantees. And so we just thought, we take a swing at this, and we’ll kind of gauge him tomorrow and gauge him Monday,” Pope said.
4 Responses
We need to bite the bullet and sit Butler and Carr out until they are 100% ready to go.
Arkansas got booed off the floor last night.
We got so lucky that they bailed us out.
just not sure Pope will do that with Kerr still out
It is not surprising that Butler takes a lot of hits because he plays rather recklessly, but the back problems and non disclosures about Carr’s problems remain rather mysterious. I personally have had many back spasms over the years and they can be treatable and manageable. Has his actual back condition ever been disclosed?
No definition of his exact back problem