Mark Pope excited about new addition to Kentucky who 'crushed' him last year

One of Kentucky's top transfer commits had a performance last year that 'crushed' BYU and former Cougars head coach Mark Pope. So, once he hit the trasnfer portal, Pope was all over him to come to Lexington.

That is former McDonald's All-American Brandon Garrison. Garrison, who played just one year at Oklahoma State, committed to Kentucky without even stepping foot on campus.

“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 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.”

The 6-foot-11 and 245-pound center had a career-high 21 points against BYU last year. He was 7-of-8 from the field.

His second best game was 20 points on 7-of-7 from the field, eight rebounds and four blocks against Baylor and former Baylor -- now current Kentucky -- assistant Alvin Brooks.

Garrison averaged 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.5 blocks this season for the Cowboys. He shot 57.2 percent from the field. He has three years of eligibility remaining.

Garrison joins a front court that has one of the more important signees in Andrew Carr from Wake Forest and Amari Williams -- who almost backed off his UK pledge after Garrison committed -- from Drexel.