Mark Pope will not call it “sending a message,” but everyone saw what happened. Brandon Garrison turned it over and slowed down as a UNNC player went up for a dunk. Pope called a timeout, told him to go sit down and he never came back in a single second during the next 28 minutes.
What mattered more to Pope was what came next.
“I don’t know about messaging, but I do know that BG after practice, at the end of practice, we had a conditioning session. He won every sprint,” Pope said in his pre-Indiana press conference. “It was awesome.”
In a week where Pope talked openly about wanting an “eat what you kill” mentality as the roster finally gets healthy, Garrison chose the one response that always plays in any era: effort. No pouting, no passive body language, just a big man outrunning teammates in a brutal conditioning segment.
Pope lit up when he talked about what those moments mean to him as a coach and the team.
‘Growing is hard and growing is ugly,’ but Brandon Garrison’s effort stood out
“One of the things that’s really incredible, that’s such an incredible privilege as a coach, is that you get to watch the day-to-day growth of these kids,” he said. “And it’s hard. Growing is hard and growing is ugly. But it’s worth it and so it’s pretty inspiring.”
That is exactly how he framed Garrison’s practice performance.
“I was proud of the way he rolled into practice yesterday and his commitment and intensity and his care and his response,” Pope said. “Those things are really important.”
None of this guarantees an immediate stat-line explosion against Indiana. Pope was clear that it “has got to translate into in-game performance.” But for a frontcourt that desperately needs Garrison to become a reliable, physical presence until Quaintance is ready, this is the kind of step that earns trust back.
It also fits with the way Pope is recalibrating his rotation as players like Jayden Quaintance inch closer to full health. He has hinted that the starting lineup could be a “revolving door” and has said more than once that he cares far more about who plays well than who hears their name at introductions.
As Kentucky gets closer to having 10–12 available bodies, the margin for error shrinks. That is when the “you eat what you kill” world Pope described really kicks in.
For Garrison, winning every sprint was a statement that he is not backing away from that fight.
“I was proud of him yesterday,” Pope said simply. Now let's see if he can do it in a game.