{"id":79664,"date":"2025-01-02T11:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T17:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/its-going-to-take-some-time-to-see-kerr-kriisa-celebrating-his-24th-birthday-today-back-in-a-kentucky-uniform\/"},"modified":"2025-01-02T11:15:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T17:15:00","slug":"its-going-to-take-some-time-to-see-kerr-kriisa-celebrating-his-24th-birthday-today-back-in-a-kentucky-uniform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/its-going-to-take-some-time-to-see-kerr-kriisa-celebrating-his-24th-birthday-today-back-in-a-kentucky-uniform\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s going to take some time\u2019 to see Kerr Kriisa \u2014 celebrating his 24th birthday today \u2014 back in a Kentucky uniform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Happy Birthday, Kerr Kriisa<\/a><\/strong>! Will the fifth-year senior celebrating his 24th birthday on Thursday receive the gift of availability to open SEC play vs. Florida this weekend? Mark Pope certainly hopes so, joking that Kriisa will be a game-time decision when the Cats take on the Gators in the battle of top-10 foes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

In all seriousness, though, the 6-3 guard is expected to remain out, just as he\u2019s been since breaking his foot in Kentucky<\/a>\u2018s overtime win over Gonzaga in Seattle back on Dec. 7.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my mind, he\u2019s a game-time decision for Saturday \u2014 but sometimes I live in a little bit of a fantasy land. We\u2019ll see,\u201d Pope said Thursday. <\/a>\u201cWe\u2019ll see how that goes, but he\u2019s still got \u2014 I mean, this is a major deal. It\u2019s going to take some time.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the second update on Kriisa\u2019s status this week, Pope providing the first during his call-in radio show on Monday. When asked then, the Kentucky head coach said he begged strength and conditioning coach Brandon Wells to clear the West Virginia transfer ahead of the start of SEC play with Florida coming to town, but was unfortunately given a firm no.<\/p>\n

That included some cryptic verbiage<\/a> indicating his long-term status remains up in the air in Lexington. The school announced Kriisa\u2019s injury was not expected to be season-ending at the time of his surgery with Pope putting a loose six-week timetable on his return<\/a> following Kentucky\u2019s win over Colgate on Dec. 11. That would put him at the midway point now with a potential comeback the week of January 19-25, assuming there are no setbacks.<\/p>\n

The Wildcats\u2019 lone matchup that week is at Vanderbilt on the 25th.<\/p>\n

\u201cKerr is doing great. He was in rehab (Monday) \u2014 I actually walked in after practice, he was working hard in rehab, so I hit Brandon Wells pretty hard about this Saturday, just seeing if I could get him to (play). That was a hard no,\u201d Pope said. \u201cSo, I don\u2019t know when or if he\u2019s coming back, but apparently he\u2019s definitely not coming back by Saturday [laughs].\u201d<\/p>\n

How is the 24-year-old with 93 career starts in 99 games leading up to his time in Lexington handling the time off? It\u2019s been an adjustment, to put it lightly. He\u2019s done nothing but compete on the floor at the collegiate level, and before that, overseas. Forced to stay off of it has been \u2018devastating.\u2019<\/p>\n

Left with no choice, though, he\u2019s making the most of his time and trying to make an impact in other ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been great. I mean, it was devastating for him, for sure. Like, devastating. He loves competing so much,\u201d Pope said. \u201cI don\u2019t think his life feels quite right not being able to compete, his life doesn\u2019t feel right. He\u2019s trying to lose himself in this team in other ways and that\u2019s going to be an incredible growing experience for him. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what we have to make it, an opportunity to really grow and learn new ways to do things. He\u2019s around good people and he\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully the old man on the team can make the most of his 24th birthday in the meantime.<\/p>\n

\n\n

Happy Birthday, @KerrKriisa<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/Ad5v7IESsd<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Kentucky Men\u2019s Basketball (@KentuckyMBB) January 2, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/span>\n<\/div>\n

The post \u2018It\u2019s going to take some time\u2019 to see Kerr Kriisa \u2014 celebrating his 24th birthday today \u2014 back in a Kentucky uniform<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Happy Birthday, Kerr Kriisa! Will the fifth-year senior celebrating his 24th birthday on Thursday receive…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79664\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}