Mark Pope got Brandon Garrison to commit to UK even though he never visited Lexington. (UK Athletics Photo)
Every commitment Kentucky coach Mark Pope gets is important as he tries to put together his first roster at UK but landing Oklahoma transfer Brandon Garrison Tuesday was especially significant.
He’s a former McDonald’s All-American who has not even visited Lexington. The 6-11 freshman had been to Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma and the general consensus was that he was bound for Arkansas to play for former UK coach John Calipari.
Instead, Garrison, who started 29 games last season, signed with the Wildcats on Tuesday. He’s a top 25 player in the transfer portal and 247Sports rated him as the fourth best center in the portal. He was a top 50 player in the 2023 recruiting class and was the Oklahoma Gatorade Player of the Year after helping his team win two state 5A championships. He also has international experience with Team USA at the 2022 FIBA under 18 Americas.
“Brandon’s a McDonald’s All-American and a FIBA U18 Americas gold medalist with Team USA who crushed me at BYU last year and crushed (assistant) coach (Alvin) Brooks at Baylor last year,” Pope said. “We’re unbelievably glad he’s on our team now. He’s an incredible person with a brilliant, joyful smile that BBN will fall in love with. We’re really excited about our front line and Brandon will be a key piece to it.”
Garrison had a season-high 21 points in a win over BYU and had 20 points both in a loss to Baylor where Brooks worked and victory over West Virginia, logged a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds in a victory over South Carolina State and had a 10-point, six-block performance in a win over Houston Christian.
He averaged 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks per game last year when he also shot 57.2 percent from the field, the fourth-best all-time among Oklahoma freshmen with at least 80 makes. He had the Big 12’s highest free-throw rate during conference play according to KenPom.com.
He was even better in Big 12 play when he averaged 9.9 points per game and had three 20-point games.
Garrison joins Drexel forward Amari Williams, San Diego State guard Lamont Butler, Oklahoma forward Otega Oweh and Wake Forest forward Andrew Carr as transfers headed to UK to play. However, the best thing about Garrison is that he can be a building block for the future as he has three years of eligibility remaining and along with freshman guards Collin Chandler and Travis Perry gives Pope three players who could be back for the 2024-25 season.
7 Responses
Humongous get. I’m glad Great took us off his list. He loves to shoot the basketball, lets just put it that way. We really need 2 more shooters. Preferably a wing and another guard. I would go after another post player. They don’t have to be special they just can’t be a liability. I was hoping that 7 foot kid who played at Baylor last year would commit but we will see. I truly think we have the right pieces to the puzzle. We have 3 guards 1 wing Oweh is better as a wing then a guard in my opinion. And 3 PF/C. I think any of the 3 frontcourt players we have can play the 4 or the 5 but we need one more. So really we need another guard another wing and another post player. I would go all in on it. Then after we add them we can go after the best player that’s still left. We are doing very good. Great job coach BBN
Coach Pope is putting together a team which appears to be the right pieces to the puzzle which the genius envisioned soon after he was offered the top job in college BB.
Although I am trying to be realistic and not extend my expectations too high, it seems reasonable to expect for UK to reach the S-16 with a real coach who also is a real UK fan!
Pope got Brea! The best 3 point shooter in Division 1 last season! And he grew up always wanting to play for Kentucky but didn’t think he was good enough coming out of high school. Toppin from New Mexico and Omier from Miami would make us a tough team to handle next season. I can’t say enough about the good job Mark has done since coming back to UK!
Mark is killing it! One more big and we will be ready to go!
Fully agree 👍
Just don’t understand how we can expect to win many games next season with this team. There is not a single player on this team being stamped as a lottery pick. How can we get any wins without them????
Just my sarcasm rant. Lol
Nice job OldFan ‼️
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