Mark Pope‘s offensive over as Kentucky bigs Amari Williams, Brandon Garrison finished 2nd…..

staple of Mark Pope‘s offense over the years has been the playmaking big man. During his final season at BYU in 2023-24, that playmaker was center Aly Khalifa, who averaged right at four assists per game despite playing fewer than 20 minutes in those outings.

A center that can get others involved and operate from the top of the key opens up Pope’s offense — even if they aren’t capable outside shooters themselves.

Going into his first season as the head coach at Kentucky, Pope might actually have two of those playmaking bigs he so desires. They would be Drexel transfer Amari Williams and Oklahoma State transfer Brandon Garrison. Both averaged under 23 minutes per game last season, yet still managed to average 1.9 and 1.5 assists per contest, respectively.

According to Pope, those two were among the team’s best playmakers throughout the entire summer. When counting up pure assist numbers, they were actually among the top three. After rattling off the impressive play of several Wildcats in the offseason during Thursday’s episode of KSR, he had to make sure Williams and Garrison received some praise, too.