Brandon Garrison shines bright vs. Alabama; The 3-point shot continues to evolve

On By Littum

The end result wasn’t what fans would have hoped for, but the Kentucky Wildcats’ 102-97 loss to Alabama Crimson Tide Saturday still produced some positive takeaways.

For starters, UK casually dropped 97 points on a top-five team without playing very well themselves. Mark Pope’s offense continues to dazzle and only has time to improve heading into the spring.

“We can get so much better. I think that’s the biggest thing,” Pope said during postgame interviews. “Listen, Alabama is a great team. They’re a great team, and that’s not taking anything away from Alabama when I say that. We left so much on the table. There is so much room for us to grow. There are so many areas where we can improve.”

It was also great to see Brandon Garrison’s outstanding play in such a great success. The big man was 5-of-7 from the field, grabbed six rebounds and dished out five assists in just 19 minutes while not committing a turnover.

Garrison put up the efficient numbers without fouling once. His maturity could be a deciding factor in how far Kentucky can go when the calendar turns to March.

We’ve seen Garrison give the Cats a physical, athletic presence in the middle all season, but against Alabama, his diverse contributions, including hitting a 3-pointer, helped give UK a chance to win.

Speaking of 3s, Garrison has become a viable weapon from deep in SEC play. After hitting just two triples in the entire non-conference portion of a loaded schedule, the rising sophomore has quietly hit 3/6 3-pointers in SEC play and is now 5/15 for the season.

Remember, he didn’t even attempt a 3 his entire freshman season at Oklahoma State.

After the game, Garrison acknowledged that a week off will do the Cats some good before they travel to Nashville to take on Vanderbilt.

“It’s going to help us a lot. We’ve got a couple of guys down, Andrew and Lamont are struggling, just a couple of guys. So I’m looking to get those guys back this week and go down there and get another road win,” he said.

It will be a wonderful development for Kentucky if Garrison can lock in and play like he did on Saturday for the rest of the conference.