While Mark Pope has been focusing on bringing in proven players from the transfer portal, he did say he would be going after McDonald’s All-Americans, aka “Burger Boys”. On Tuesday morning, he got his first one at Kentucky, in Oklahoma State transfer Brandon Garrison, who announced his commitment on social media.
A four-star in the 2023 recruiting class, Garrison elected to stay home and play for Oklahoma State over Kansas, Texas, and Houston. In his freshman season, he started 29 of 32 games and averaged 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 1.5 blocks last season. While he was inconsistent, he never stopped working.
“Just 19 years old, he, um… he’s special,” Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton said of Garrison, choked up after a 20-point breakout game against Baylor back in January. “He just shows up and does his job.”
“He’s still just scratching the surface of what he can be. He really doesn’t know how good he can be yet, which is probably a good thing, because he doesn’t have a corrupted mind. He’s not in a rush to go somewhere. That’s a big part of the reason he’s been able to get better.”
Even Baylor coach Scott Drew loved what he saw from Garrison. “I loved him out of high school. I saw him play a lot. Loved his motor, loved his intangibles and character,” Drew said.
When Boyton was fired after the season, Garrison entered the transfer portal and a familiar name reached out, new Kentucky associate head coach Alvin Brooks, who was the lead recruiter for Garrison at Baylor. With that connection, he was able to recruit Garrison to Lexington.
Garrison will join a formidable frontcourt of Amari Williams and Andrew Carr, who are more experienced. However, Garrison brings strengths of his own and has NBA upside. One of his biggest strengths is his willingness to learn.
“His No. 1 thing, he wanted to learn. I was always impressed with his desire to learn and how well he adapted to the things he was learning,” Garrison’s mentor and high school Tommy Griffin said of him.
Scouting Report
Per 247Sports:
“Garrison is not going to wow you with scoring numbers or too many loud dunks. He’s not even overly vocal. But he’s very smart, in all the right spots on both ends of the floor, and should be able to fit right into offensive structure and defensive schemes from day one in college.
He has soft hands, good use of his left, passes well, is poised looking for cutters, and a reliable decision-maker (better than a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio in EYBL). He’s not a shot creator or much of a floor-spacer at this point (although he does have touch to develop), and could better utilize his size and frame inside by getting deeper seals and a higher release point in the lane. But he also doesn’t try to do things he can’t and projects as someone who should be able to play out of dribble handoffs and short rolls at the next level.
Defensively, it’s not that he is exceptionally mobile, but that he understands coverages and can even utilize his length to show some deceptive switchability, as he did in FIBA play. He shows glimpses of rebounding in traffic, but could do so on a more consistent basis. Physically, he’s very coordinated for his size, gets off his feet fairly well, runs hard, and covers the court with long fluid strides. Overall, you just know what you’re going to get from him, and the overlap of his size and two-way reliability is what makes him such a high-floor prospect.
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