Mark Pope was proud of Brandon Garrison's response to his recent struggles

Kentucky's lack of effort in recent games been under a microscope, but especially lately after falling to Gonzaga in embarrassing fashion last Friday. Well, a week later, the effort from the Wildcats on the court looked completely different in front of their home crowd, and it showed. Kentucky held Indiana to just 4-24 shooting from three after coming off their best shooting performance of the season, but they also did damage in the turnover category too. Kentucky forced 18 turnovers, 12 coming in the second half, and had 23 points off them.

The effort and intensity was there all game, especially defensively, with the offense having a rough shooting night and multiple scoring droughts without Jaland Lowe on the floor. Kentucky put together a full-game of intense play, and they never backed down, which fans really have to like seeing from their team. Whose response was Mark Pope proud of the most? Brandon Garrison, who he benched during Tuesday's game against NC Central from the 8:04 mark in the first half until the end of the game. Pope talked about what went into him benching Garrison and showing his fiery side as head coach.

"He didn’t have a good minute," Pope said on the postgame radio on UK Sports Network. "He kind of broke some cardinal rules about wearing the Kentucky jersey. I don’t want to make it bigger than it is, but there’s just a standard."

His response all started in a practice earlier this week after Tuesday's poor showing.

"Due to, like, what's inside him and how he wants to be an example to his son, and how he wants to make his mom proud and how badly he wants to be successful in the process of him growing up to be, hopefully, a great man which, which hopefully can do, that would be worth everything, he showed up to practice, and we go through practice, he has a great practice, and then -- We don't do a ton of conditioning practice, but this day we did. And he just, on his own, just won every sprint, outsprinting every guard, every single person. And I didn't tell him to do that. That was just his response. And we don't always respond the right way, but he responded right away, and I'm super proud of him. Our job is to win. That's it. But, like, but those things are really special to me."

This season, a lot of the effort talk has been about translating it from practice to the games, which has been a struggle, but Pope's message he sent to Garrison on Tuesday by benching him was exactly what he needed to motivate him. On Saturday, Garrison's effort translated, as he had 6 points, 5 rebounds, 2 assists, and a block and steal on the defensive end. He played 20 minutes off the bench, too, and was really effective on the defensive end.

But, what Pope was most proud to see was his heart and fight come out in a competitive game, because like he said, Garrison could've had a much different reaction, but his pride outweighs those other thoughts.