Mark Pope Wants Even More From Brandon Garrison

Vicky Graff Photo

During his radio show last week one of the more interesting calls that Kentucky coach Mark Pope got was about sophomore Brandon Garrison’s habit of almost always slapping an opponent’s arms when the player tries to put his hands on Garrison during a dead ball.

He’s not the only player to do it but the fan noted that it seems like Garrison does it every time an opponent puts his arms on him.

“What we’d like him to do — we’re actually encouraging him to be more hips and shoulders than hands,” Pope told the caller. “We talk about big shoulders in the post where your axis is actually not your shoulder. It’s not your shoulder that you’re turning on an axis, but your axis is straight down through the middle core of your body, which allows your shoulder to actually create space when you turn.

“It’s a little bit of a nuance thing but we’re trying to get him away from hands and forearms and more into big shoulders, center axis turns, where he creates space that way.”

Garrison has played well at times and has 26 assists compared to 14 turnovers, one of the best ratios for any center in the country. He’s also shooting 48 percent, a mark that Pope would like to see improve..

“He’s got a ton in the tank. He is gonna grow into an extraordinary player,” the UK coach said. “He’s learning a lot with us right now. What he’s done in terms of protecting the ball through the course of the season is still really, really solid.”

He is averaging 5.5 points, 5.1 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 18 minutes per game going into UK’s final non-conference game against Brown Tuesday.

“What we’ve seen in him that’s been so spectacular is he’s just becoming more and more patient in the post. Even in a game (against Ohio State that UK lost in its last outing) that certainly didn’t feel right, he made a couple of great plays out of the post where he really, really allowed actions to happen away from him.

“He had an unbelievable backdoor pass to Ansley Almonor cutting down the lane late, in a late split-cut in the first half. He’s doing that more and more.”