Jaland Lowe's shoulder is 'the best it can be' as he navigates playing through injury

Jaland Lowe is treating every game like it could be the last of his season. That’s the reality he’s living in after having injured his non-shooting shoulder multiple times since the preseason began.

“It’s the best it can be,” Lowe told reporters Tuesday about his right shoulder. “Just with where we’re at right now, with different mishaps and still trying to play with everything. But it’s feeling really good. I just hate wearing a brace, that’s all I can say.”

Lowe was back in Kentucky’s lineup during Saturday’s blowout road loss to Alabama in the SEC-opener. He had sat out the previous game against Bellarmine after barely surviving the game before that, in which Lowe re-injured his shoulder in the first half, only to return in the second and serve a key piece in helping the Wildcats charge back to beat Rick Pitino and St. John’s in Atlanta. In the defeat to the Crimson Tide a few days ago, the 6-foot-2 point guard went for 21 points on 8-16 shooting in 27 minutes.

But even when he’s finding ways to score, Lowe’s injury has kept him from being the player he was throughout the summer. He’s having to learn how to continue being an aggressive point guard while also avoiding obvious harm.

“I’m figuring it out still,” he said. “I don’t know if you all will notice on TV as much or in person. But sometimes when you’re on the court, you can realize I’m not doing some things that I would love to do in the moment, just as a competitor and as a fighter, I can’t do some of those things. I have to pull back sometimes just to not put myself at a huge risk.”

That aspect of risk has brought on a new challenge: the mental approach. Lowe has only appeared in seven of Kentucky’s 14 games this season. He admitted that losing hasn’t helped him remain eternally optimistic. Every time he’s on the floor, “it’s a risk.” But his teammates desperately need him out there as the only true point guard on the roster. Against Indiana, St. John’s, and Alabama, Lowe averaged 15.7 points per game on 50 percent shooting.

He knows he could do more, though. His assist numbers are low compared to last season at Pitt. He wants to do more. He’s still in the process of learning his teammates’ tendencies through game reps. That can only continue if he’s available to play, which means he can’t be 100 percent of the player he wants to be as he navigates through a nagging injury. That’s not an easy thing to balance.

“It’s frustrating,” Lowe added. “But if I wanna play I gotta do what I gotta do.”