Kentucky needs more of Brandon Garrison's energy moving forward

The Kentucky Wildcats picked up a much-needed win on Wednesday when they defeated the LSU Tigers 87-82 in the first round of the SEC Tournament to advance to Thursday. It wasn't easy, as anytime it looked like Kentucky was about to pull away, the Tigers answered with buckets of their own. But, there was a point late in the game that proved to be the most important.

With 11 minutes to go in the game, LSU cut Kentucky's lead to just one point, but with the help of Brandon Garrison, the Wildcats turned that into a 12-1 run that helped them get some needed separation late in the game. It wasn't a guy like Aberdeen or Oweh who actually sparked the biggest run of the game, it was their spark-plug big man off the bench, who has provided energy at times for this team throughout the season. In the big run, Garrison made two threes on his way to an 18-point performance and had eight of the team's twelve points in that run.

That exact run turned out to be the biggest run of the entire game and it not only helped Kentucky gain a lead, but it also energized the entire team from then on. This team has been known to lack energy and urgency late in games at certain times, but Garrison made sure that was not going to happen in Wednesday's win. Malachi Moreno dealt with early foul trouble and Garrison answered the call to step up. Here is what Mark Pope had to say about one of Garrison's best performances of his college career.

"I thought BG was tremendous. He gave us a real boost after Malachi's two fouls in the first half," Pope said following Kentucky's win over LSU. "He's been telling me all season, 'coach, I'm not going to make any shots till the post-season. I'm just going to save them.' ...It's interesting, because you know BG. If you know him BG, sometimes personally he can put on this little shy persona. He has zero part of him that's shy on the court. He was great tonight. My favorite play of the game, he's seven for nine from the field, was the dunk that he missed. He was so physical and determined to get to the rim. He went back and got his own miss off the dunk. When BG is operating like that, when he's that physical
and intentional, he's special. Take the threes, lose the threes. He was a huge factor for us in this game."

Garrison completely changed the mindset and energy of this Kentucky team to spark their win over LSU on Wednesday. They're gonna need more of that big-time play from Garrison moving forward, especially if Moreno continues to get himself in trouble. Up next, a very physical Missouri team awaits, who got the best of the Wildcats in the regular season.