Jaxson Robinson didn’t like the direction of his game. He turned it around in Starkville.

A week before experiencing the highlight of his Kentucky basketball career so far — an unforgettable shooting performance in a 95-90 win at Mississippi State on Saturday night — Jaxson Robinson felt like he wasn’t living up to his own lofty expectations.

So, on that preceding Saturday afternoon back in Lexington — well after the Wildcats had just handed No. 6 Florida its first loss of the season in a 106-100 epic — the Rupp Arena court was the setting for the sound of a bouncing basketball.

It was an odd scene. A rare one, too.

Not often in the past has a UK player returned to the Rupp floor immediately after a game to put up shots. Those Cats looking to get in more work might go back to campus for a shootaround in the team’s practice facility. Apparently, for Robinson, it couldn’t wait.

So as the last fans who’d stuck around for Mark Pope’s postgame radio show filed out of the building and the cleaning crew started canvassing the home of UK basketball, Robinson grabbed a couple of staff members to rebound. And he put up shot after shot after shot.

After a while, Pope returned to the court, got his player’s attention and leaned in for a conversation. The coach spoke, Robinson listened. Once the talk was finished, they shared a hug, and Pope walked off the court. Robinson stayed. And shot and shot and shot some more.

He hadn’t been bad that day. The 22-year-old was 5-for-12 from the field with 14 points — and a couple of timely 3s — in one of Kentucky’s biggest wins of the season. But it hadn’t been the season that he’d hoped for to that point.

There were major highs — like filling in as a point guard in a pinch and leading the Cats to a come-from-behind win over Gonzaga four weeks earlier — but also plenty of lows. A less-than-stellar performance in a 20-point loss to Ohio State two weeks after that. A one-point showing against Duke in the first big game of the season. And, generally, a feeling that his shot wasn’t falling like it should.

So he kept on shooting, hoping to find his rhythm.

Three days later, things got worse. Robinson went 1-for-5 from the field — all of those shots coming from 3-point range — and scored five points in an 82-69 loss at Georgia, perhaps the low point, personally, of the season.

The next night, on Pope’s weekly radio show, a caller noted that it looked like Robinson was shooting the ball differently than he had in the past. That maybe he was trying to get the ball off a little quicker — a necessary change for a possible NBA career, but something that seemed to be messing with his timing in the present.

Pope thanked the caller for the astute observation. And then he talked about the player on his first Kentucky team that he knows best.

“Jax is one of the hardest workers. Jax is a little bit like a Tiger Woods,” he said. “Tiger Woods is relentless about trying to reinvent his stroke, right? I mean, he’s the greatest golfer in the world, and he’s trying to actually find a way to do it better. And Jax is one of those guys that is absolutely relentless in terms of, you know, trying to grow his stroke and trying to perfect the craft of being a great shooter.

“And so he’s always trying to find ways where he can get a little bit better and a little bit better. And so, certainly, he’s trying to explore where he could go as a shooter.”

To that point in the season, Robinson was shooting 29.5% from 3-point range, down from the 35.4% he shot from deep as Pope’s leading scorer at BYU last season, the only player the coach brought with him from Provo to Lexington when he got the UK job.

His season high in scoring was 20 points, which came against Lipscomb on Nov. 19. His most makes from 3-point range? Four, against Jackson State, three days later. Robinson hadn’t made more than two 3-pointers in any of the 10 games since. And it was getting to him.

And then came Saturday night in Starkville.

In the first 90 seconds, Robinson lost a turnover and then missed a 3-pointer. Another bad night? Not this time.

After that first miss, Amari Williams grabbed an offensive rebound and flung it back out to Robinson, who caught it in the corner, pumpfaked a defender past the baseline and stepped back to try again. This one was good. So was the next one. And the one after that. And so on.

All told, Robinson made seven consecutive 3-point shots after that initial miss. He scored 10 points in the first nine minutes of the game. He lofted one over the outstretched arms of 6-foot-10 forward KeShawn Murphy to give the Cats a 34-31 lead later in the first half, a shot that left the defensive-minded Chris Jans shaking his head on the Mississippi State sideline. A few minutes later, he hit another one from the wing to put UK ahead 39-37.

Kentucky took a 49-44 lead into halftime — Robinson leading the way with 16 points — and then he really heated up.

The 6-6 guard nailed a 3-pointer on UK’s first possession of the second half. A couple of minutes later, he stepped into another long triple. On the next possession, he hit another. Seven shots without a miss, three of them coming before the first TV timeout of the second half.

The last one gave Robinson 25 points — and Kentucky a 62-51 lead — with nearly 17 minutes still left to play. The Bulldogs would ultimately come back to retake the lead before the Cats wrestled it back for good.

Robinson went mostly silent in the meantime, not scoring again until a long jumper with a little more than a minute to go put the Cats ahead 93-90. But that shot was huge, and what came before was a sight to behold.

“I was really proud of Jaxson,” Pope said. “He had a tough week last week. … And then he was super conscious two days ago about getting on the court, and — all of a sudden — he was on the court, and he was teasing his guys and joking with his guys, and he had a big smile. He was bringing intensity. And then we talked yesterday and again today, and he just had this focus. And he’s like, ‘OK, I just got distracted. I started worrying about my future and my past and making shots and missing shots and all the stuff.’ And he’s just like, ‘I’m just gonna go play. I’m just gonna go be in the moment. You know, make shots, miss shots, I don’t care. I’m gonna go compete.’

“And the game treats you right, man. And his performance tonight was the result of his commitment. Just like, ‘I’m gonna stop worrying about what’s happened and what might happen. I’m gonna just go play, and I’m gonna go give my whole heart and soul, competing.’ And he did that beautifully tonight.”

Robinson came to Kentucky with one more season of college eligibility. He built a trust with Pope over the two previous years at BYU, and when he pulled his name out of last year’s NBA draft, there was no drawn-out recruitment befitting a top-notch transfer of his stature. He immediately announced his commitment to Kentucky.

He came to Lexington hoping to compete for a national title but also wanting to expand his game, to make it more attractive to NBA scouts. While the numbers hadn’t been there — and Robinson has been absent from the most recent 2025 draft boards — Pope has continued to support his player, praising his commitment to get better elsewhere.

“What I’m really proud of him about is the emphasis that he’s placed on all the other parts of the game, right?” Pope said Wednesday night. “He’s really focused on trying to guard. He’s trying to bring some physicality to rebounding. He’s trying to be a leader on the court, in terms of his communication.”

And, as the coach said later on, he had complete faith that the shots would eventually fall. Next time out, they did. Robinson was the obvious choice to be interviewed on ESPN after the performance — one point shy of his career high — and was asked what made him so comfortable with his game against the No. 14-ranked Bulldogs.

“Just keep going,” he said of his mentality. “To be honest with you, I’ve had a rough couple of games. Especially after last game — I didn’t have my best outing — but my teammates, my coaches, they just kept confidence in me. They kept instilling it in me. And I came out here tonight, played free, played with confidence. And, I mean, I played great.

“So I can’t thank my teammates and my coaches enough.”

After the game, Williams — a 7-footer with a knack for passing — smiled as Robinson spoke about his night. UK’s starting center, who assisted on three of Robinson’s buckets, including that first 3-pointer, said the entire team was trying to find him once it was clear he was hot.

“As a team, we all know Jax. We all know how hard he works,” Williams said. “I mean, he’s probably the hardest worker on the team. So just being in his corner, just making sure that he knows that, and just seeing him today made us all proud. …

“Just knowing that he was back was big for us.”

To get where this Kentucky team wants to go, it’ll need Robinson to play a major role. He delivered against Gonzaga. He hit some big shots against Florida. And in another one of the Cats’ toughest games of the season, he had perhaps his best showing as a college player Saturday night in Starkville.

“Just trying to be a leader — lead by example. Lead by my voice,” Robinson said. “I’m the only player that came with Coach Pope, so just trying to set the example of what it means to wear this Kentucky jersey, along with the rest of my guys. And we’re still learning it, but I think we’re on our way. And tonight was a great step towards that goal.”

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