Will Kerr Kriisa play again for UK basketball this season? Mark Pope gives an update
During his weekly press conference Thursday afternoon, Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope said that fifth-year guard Kerr Kriisa is past the point of returning to play for the Wildcats this season.
“We’re past the window now where he could actually get back,” Pope said. “It’s just been a little bit of a stubborn healing process. So, he just hasn’t reached the benchmarks that he needed to get to, in terms of the healing process.”
Pope’s Thursday comments about Kriisa — a fifth-year guard from Estonia who previously played at Arizona and West Virginia — came after Kriisa didn’t go through any Senior Night festivities during UK’s home win over LSU on Tuesday.
During his weekly radio show Monday night, prior to that LSU game, Pope said Kriisa will have one more year of college eligibility remaining.
Kriisa suffered a fractured foot while playing in UK’s overtime win over Gonzaga on Dec. 7 and hasn’t appeared in a game for the Wildcats since. Kriisa has only played in nine games this season.
“We walked into the season thinking Kerr was going to exhaust his eligibility this year, but he didn’t,” Pope said Monday, noting that Kentucky’s Senior Night ceremony would be reserved for the players who have exhausted all of their college eligibility.
“He’s got another year left, which is so fantastic for all of us, right?”
When Kriisa suffered his foot injury in early December, it wasn’t thought to be a season-ending setback. In fact, when UK announced that Kriisa would undergo surgery for the injury, the team’s statement explicitly said that it was not expected to be a season-ending injury.
Pope’s comments following the surgery also indicated that he expected Kriisa to return at some point.
But, Kriisa’s recovery process went slower than expected. Last month, Pope acknowledged that Kriisa might not return to the court during the 2024-25 campaign.
Kriisa meets the basic requirements for a medical redshirt, which, under NCAA rules, can be granted to a player who has played in fewer than 30% of his team’s games and didn’t compete after the midway point of the season. Kriisa would still have to apply to receive that extra year of eligibility, however.
It remains unclear whether Kriisa would opt to return to college basketball for another season.
Projecting forward, Kentucky’s 2025 high school recruiting class includes a pair of talented backcourt prospects in left-handed guards Jasper Johnson and Acaden Lewis. Both players are top-30 recruits nationally. The likes of Collin Chandler, Otega Oweh and Travis Perry could also all return from this season’s UK squad.
UK is also expected to pursue a veteran, defense-first point guard in the transfer portal.
The 24-year-old Kriisa is not projected as an NBA draft selection this summer, but he would be expected to have immediate professional playing opportunities overseas. Kriisa already played for professional teams in Europe before he moved to the United States and pursued a college basketball career.
In his nine games at Kentucky this season, Kriisa averaged 4.4 points, 2.4 rebounds and 3.8 assists in 17.3 minutes played per contest. In his college career, Kriisa has appeared in 108 total games, with 94 starts.
No. 19 Kentucky, which has secured a top-8 seed in the SEC Tournament, closes the regular season Saturday afternoon at No. 15 Missouri.
This story was originally published March 6, 2025 at 11:34 AM with the headline "Will Kerr Kriisa play again for UK basketball this season? Mark Pope gives an update."
