Mark Pope on Brandon Garrison: "He's sometimes wrong but never in doubt."

It’s been somewhat of a rollercoaster season for Brandon Garrison. He’s yet to score double-digits in back-to-back games this season, but whenever he produces, Kentucky typically plays well. Friday night’s postseason win was a perfect example of that. UK is now 5-2 on the season (and 3-0 in the last month) when the sophomore center scores 10 or more points.

Garrison and freshman guard Collin Chandler were the second-half spark plugs the Wildcats desperately needed to cruise past Troy in the first round of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. Those two took turns scoring the ball during Kentucky’s 15-0 run, which built UK’s six-point lead into a 21-point advantage. Garrison chipped in six points, two steals, and one rebound during that three-minute stretch. He finished the night with a final stat line of 13 points (5-7 FG), six rebounds, two assists, and two steals in 15 minutes.

It was another look at what the future might hold for Garrison, a former McDonald’s All-American out of high school. Especially with Amari Williams dealing with a minor back injury, head coach Mark Pope might need to rely on Garrison a bit more for the rest of the postseason (and beyond). Pope doesn’t seem to have any issue with that possibility either, even if it’s not always a perfect product. There’s some beauty in the mistakes.

“Brandon is, I’m telling you, he’s fun, right?” Pope said during Saturday’s pre-Illinois press conference. “He’s sometimes wrong but never in doubt. And I love that about him. That’s what you want your players to be. He’s doing really special things. His float game has grown to the free throw line, his three-point game is really, really dangerous right now.

“His decisiveness on turning down decisions to get to the good one, he’s a high-level decision-maker for us. He’s got the ball in his hands. We have three cutters going at the same time and he’ll turn down, turn down, turn down, and finally choose the right one, and that’s advanced-level processing in his mind. He’s been really great.”

Garrison might not always make the right decision, but as Pope said, he’s not one to second guess himself those decisions. While that can sometimes be a frustrating trait, it’s also what allows him to stretch the floor with his outside shooting (he’s 5-14 from deep over his last seven games) and perimeter playmaking (his 1.6 assist/turnover ratio is actually higher than Williams’ number of 1.3).

They say hesitation will get you killed — for better or worse, Garrison doesn’t have to worry about that.

Subscribe to the KSR YouTube Channel for press conferences, interviews, original shows, fan features, and exclusive content.