{"id":86843,"date":"2025-08-16T08:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T08:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/86843\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T08:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T08:51:07","slug":"brandon-garrison-led-kentucky-in-assist-to-turnover-ratio-during-summer-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/86843\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandon Garrison led Kentucky in assist-to-turnover ratio during summer practices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brandon Garrison<\/a> is one of Mark Pope<\/a>\u2018s few returning pieces in 2025-26, but he flew under the radar during summer practices as fan focus understandably shifted toward the talented newcomers.<\/p>\n

With potential NBA lottery pick big man Jayden Quaintance<\/a> recovering from his ACL tear, stretch forward Andrija Jelavi\u0107<\/a> still making his way over to the United States, and seven-foot freshman Malachi Moreno<\/a> impressing behind the scenes, Garrison hasn\u2019t received the offseason mentions he probably deserves. It\u2019s easy to forget that he appeared in 35 games last season as Amari Williams<\/a>\u2018 backup, averaging 5.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.9 assists in 17.3 minutes per game. There is a world \u2014 and it\u2019s probably the one we live in \u2014 where Garrison is starting at center to open the 2025-26 season while Quaintance finishes his rehab. <\/p>\n

And Pope is excited to see what the 6-foot-10 rising junior can do in year two under his guidance, both on the floor and as a veteran voice. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been fun to watch (Garrison) grow as a leader,\u201d Pope told Matt Norlander this week on CBS Sports\u2019 Summer Shootaround<\/a>. \u201cTowards the end of last season, for the first time in the last month of the season, we started to hear him say something from time to time. And he\u2019s carried that into the summer. I thought his work ethic continued to grow throughout the course of the summer, especially the last three or four weeks. He really dialed in and understands that the next step doesn\u2019t come naturally. You gotta go take it. So it\u2019s been fun to watch him grow that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope has mentioned several times during the offseason how his second-year players tend to make significant leaps in their development. That\u2019s exactly what he expects out of Garrison. Pope has seen it happen first-hand during summer practice, particularly with his defensive versatility and playmaking skills. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe does give us this incredible opportunity to switch 1 through 5 because he\u2019s such an elite-level switch defender on ball screens and away from the ball. We expect him to have a big season,\u201d Pope added. \u201cAnd it\u2019s his second year. Fun stat for him, he was our leading assist-turnover guy on the entire team this summer in the eight weeks, right at a 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. It\u2019s been fun to see him grow that way in terms of his ball security from where he came in last summer. It\u2019s been really incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garrison has steadily improved his passing abilities as a college player, an especially important trait for a big man in Pope\u2019s system. He went from posting a 0.89 assist-turnover ratio as a freshman at Oklahoma State to clocking in at 1.59 as a sophomore at UK. If Garrison can reach the 2.0 mark as a junior like he did this summer, his ceiling \u2014 and the team\u2019s \u2014 will only go up.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Join KSR Plus! With a KSR Plus membership, you get access to bonus content and KSBoard, KSR\u2019s message board, to chat with fellow Cats fans and get exclusive scoop.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brandon Garrison is one of Mark Pope\u2018s few returning pieces in 2025-26, but he flew under the radar…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,59847,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-86843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-brandon-garrison-23-del-city","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}