LEXINGTON — Every time Jaland Lowe steps on the court, be it a practice or a game, is like rolling the dice. Or, as he described it during a news conference Tuesday morning, “it’s a risk” whenever he suits up for Kentucky basketball because of his ongoing shoulder injury.

He originally injured the shoulder during the Blue-White game on Oct. 17. He’s reinjured it twice more since then.

Expected to be the Wildcats’ starting point guard this season, Lowe has yet to appear in the lineup since the regular season tipped off. Each of his seven outings this season has been in a reserve role.

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With the injury hanging over his head like a guillotine that could end his 2025-26 campaign at any moment, Lowe has had to learn to play a new way.

“I don’t know if y’all will notice on TV as much or in person,” he said. “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.”

Lowe acknowledged having to rein in his aggressive tendencies is “frustrating” to no end.

“But if I wanna play, I gotta do what I gotta do,” Lowe said.

Lowe and the rest of his teammates aim to help Kentucky bounce back from last week’s loss at Alabama. UK has that opportunity tonight, hosting Missouri at Rupp Arena in the Wildcats’ SEC home opener.

UK (9-5, 0-1 SEC) and Missouri (11-3, 1-0) are unranked in the two major polls (USA TODAY Sports Men’s Basketball Coaches and AP Top 25).

Courier Journal sports reporter Ryan Black and columnist C.L. Brown are at Rupp Arena and will have live updates throughout the game — here and on X, formerly known as Twitter — and complete coverage after. You can follow them on X at @RyanABlack and @clbrownhoops.

If you thought Kentucky’s approach to its matchup at Alabama was bizarre, you’re not alone — Mo Dioubate, the former Crimson Tide forward under Nate Oats, was left scratching his head on the way home from Tuscaloosa, too. How did the Wildcats get caught with their pants down on so many wide-open looks for a team leading the country in three-point volume? How did they get shut down offensively with the Tide ranked among the worst high-major defenses in the country? There was plenty to dislike about the 89-74 loss, especially for a guy who was in that other locker room a year ago for three successful scouting reports leading to three wins in Mark Pope’s debut season in Lexington.

He was excited to hand his old coach and teammates a loss as a friend-turned-enemy. Instead, they were able to get the last laugh, making juggling the emotions of his homecoming and the frustrations of a loss tough.

“It was quite fun (being back), a little emotional. That’s a school that I played for for two years, where I created a lot of bonds with people over there,” he told KSR on Tuesday. “It was fun. I was looking forward to that game for a long time. We didn’t get the result we wanted, but just being back there in that environment felt good. … I was really, really excited going into that game. I’ve been looking forward to that game all year.”

As for what went wrong in Tuscaloosa that prevented the blue and white from leaving Coleman Coliseum with a victory? He brought up the scout multiple times after allowing 38 attempts from deep with 15 makes for a team coming off a 54-attempt, 22-make effort against Yale just days before.

They inexplicably played right into Alabama’s strengths.

“I feel like the game could have been a lot better if we had made more of an emphasis on the scout,” Dioubate said. “The way they played, I was kind of expecting that in a way because I played for Oats at Alabama. I was expecting a lot of threes, a lot of flare screens going into that game. I feel like we could have emphasized that more, being on the catch. Knowing that they’re an isolation team, being in the gaps early to build out, I think there’s a lot of things we could have done better.”

The film breakdown wasn’t fun once the Wildcats returned to Lexington, as Pope made clear on his radio show Monday evening. That includes his own personal coaching evaluation.

“There were some brutal moments in the film session, where you know you just have to watch yourself — me included — not perform the way that you expect to, where you don’t live up to your standard,” he said.

What got under Dioubate’s skin the most during the postgame autopsy after the dust settled? Well, again, the scout.

“The most frustrating part was seeing that we could have done better at the scouting report. It felt like they were doing the same thing over and over,” he continued. “Just thinking we could have done a lot better on the defensive side. With the attention to detail and the personnel, we should have taken it more seriously.”

What did he learn about this group in Tuscaloosa? That attention to detail could have been better when coming up with the scout.

“I didn’t learn something that I didn’t know already. It was just the attention to detail. I feel like we could have emphasized that a lot more in the scout. Some of the plays they were doing, the offensive movements, the peel to a flare (screen) — I feel like we could have studied it a little more and emphasized it more. I think that would have been a major difference in the game.”

It wasn’t just finger-pointing for Dioubate, either — he knows he’s partially to blame, too. No one crushed it for Kentucky on both sides of the floor across 40 minutes of game action.

He could’ve done more to will the Wildcats to victory, setting the tone early before the wheels fell off without a serious shot to recover.

“As far as me, I think I could have impacted the game more — I had a mismatch on me the whole game,” he added. “I felt like I could have been more dominant there. The game was just going really fast and we were just trying to stop the bleeding. We could have done better in-game adjustments when they started making all those threes. I think there was a lot that we could have done better for this game.”

You may have heard Nate Oats’ analysis of the Wildcats’ struggles after the matchup, saying he knew he could exploit Kentucky’s questionable passing tendencies — particularly in the frontcourt.

The way he saw it on film going into the game, this team struggles to move the ball, despite its misleading assist rates when considering high-major competition vs. cupcakes. More specifically, the bigs don’t look to pass once they’re fed the ball in the post.

“Our thing was, they throw it in and these guys aren’t trying to pass,” Oats said. “They’re trying to score the ball.”

Pope didn’t necessarily agree with the opposing coach’s assessment of his bigs, but Dioubate himself doesn’t mind the criticism.

“That’s just the kind of guy he is,” he said of his former coach. “He’s super intelligent when it comes to knowing basketball. He does his research a lot. He’s probably better than a lot of people in the country. That’s what he does. I didn’t know that, honestly. I was kind of surprised hearing that. I think him saying that allowed us to see what we could work on better. From the post scoring and all of the options from there.”

Needless to say, it’s clear Dioubate wanted this one against his former school.

(LEX18) — A toddler from eastern Kentucky has completed his fourth round of chemotherapy, marking a significant milestone in his battle against an aggressive form of leukemia.

It’s a story LEX18 first brought to you back in May.

Three-year-old Axel Combs was first diagnosed with T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia in April while on vacation in Florida. Nine months later, he has completed four rounds of aggressive chemotherapy and recently finished his frontline treatment.

Over the past several months, Axel has undergone surgeries, blood transfusions, and many aggressive treatments to reach this point.

“I feel two totally different ways all at the same time. Like part of me is so sad, but then part of me is so grateful and appreciative at the same time,” said Sasha Combs, Axel’s mother.

The family now waits for Axel’s Absolute Neutrophil Count to reach 750, so he can move forward with a less aggressive chemotherapy treatment for the next two years.

Combs says doctors are hopeful Axel will reach that number by Tuesday once his labs are rechecked.

Axel has even started acting like himself again, which has given his family hope.

“Up until probably like July or August, those personality changes were still there,” Combs said. “When we started seeing him act more like himself, that kind of gave us a glimpse of hope.”

Despite his treatment, Axel has been able to enjoy special moments, including serving as an honorary captain with the Cincinnati Reds and seeing the lights at the Kentucky Horse Park.

Combs says Axel had to undergo chemotherapy on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, but was able to wake up together Christmas morning.

“We were able to spend Christmas here at the temporary home together. It was the four of us,” Combs said.

Beyond Axel’s health challenges, the family faces significant financial burdens. From April to December, their insurance was billed $2.4 million for his cancer treatments. Some chemotherapy treatments cost $50,000 for a single dose.

Combs says the family’s faith has only grown, along with a newfound perspective, as they navigate this journey.

She thanks the community for its overwhelming support and outreach, especially on her Facebook page, Angels for Axel, where she shares every step of his journey.

“You can still find happiness and beauty among really horrible, horrible, horrible situations,” Combs said. “There’s hope for the future. That this doesn’t define us or this doesn’t ruin his life. Our life. Like that, there is still beauty that can be in this, after this.”

Those who want to follow Axel’s journey can visit the Facebook page “Angels for Axel.”

If you’d like to help the family through donations, you can donate to the following payment systems:

PayPal: Sasha Combs
Venmo: @SashaAlexisCombs
Cashapp: $SashaAlexisCombs

Combs hopes to one day turn Angels for Axel into a nonprofit has she wants to help advocate for both children with cancer and their families.