Kentucky men’s basketball headed to the locker room on Saturday night with its heads hanging low, down seven to Indiana, forced to confront yet another ugly first-half outing.
This matchup with the Hoosiers meant a lot to the Cats. Not only were they facing an old rival for the first time since 2016, but they also had an opportunity to earn their first Power Five and Quad 1 wins of the 2025-26 season after starting 0-4 in those two categories.
However, with those two headlines in mind, UK still faltered through the first 20 minutes of play, shooting 32.1% from the field and a worrying 11.1% from deep, painting a similar picture to every game it had dropped up to that point.
The energy in Rupp Arena was lacking, and rightfully so. Big Blue Nation had seen this tale too many times this season, causing a wave of doubt, frustration and panic.
With a ton on the line, including its momentum heading into a huge matchup with No. 22 St. John’s on Dec. 20, Kentucky had no choice but to have a dominant second half.
And it did.
The Cats came out and told a whole new story, pasting the Hoosiers 40-21 in the final 20 minutes of play to achieve a 72-60 win, its first meaningful one of the season.
The question should be what changed? But, in this case, the question was who changed?
And the answer to that is Mouhamed Dioubate and Brandon Garrison.
Dioubate, who was playing his first game since getting injured against No. 17 Michigan State on Nov. 18, registered a double-double, recording a team-high 14 points, a team-high 12 rebounds and a team-high five steals. Nine of those points, eight of those rebounds and two of those steals all came in the second half of play.
The first-year Wildcat had been grinding all night, but he truly shifted the game’s momentum when he battled for his own offensive rebound and finished with a layup with 11:31 to go in the game. The made layup gave the Cats a 50-49 lead, their first of the second half.
Following the play, Dioubate hyped up the crowd and sparked a Rupp Arena explosion, one that wouldn’t settle until the fans were forced to trek home through a snowstorm.
“I always had that to my game, just bringing energy,” Dioubate said following the win. “No matter where I played, I have always had that spark. Once I committed, I knew I would be bringing that to the team. I just try to make it contagious. Like today, it was very contagious. Everyone was playing to that standard.”
Aside from Dioubate’s enhancing spirit, Garrison brought a lot to the table as well, getting the crowd going every time he or his teammates did something positive on the court.
“We both played really hard, like, we fed off of each other’s energy,” Dioubate said when asked how he and Garrison complemented each other against the Hoosiers. “He (Garrison) fed off my steals, my rebounds. I fed off his dunk, you know, the aggressiveness that he had today. It’s probably the most aggressive game I’ve seen him play in my life.”
Ironically enough, effort and passion was something that Garrison had dating back to last season, and out of all people, he was never expected to be the one to miss it.
However, Garrison failed to bring that intensity in nearly every one of UK’s contests this season, and it resulted in him getting benched nearly 11 minutes into Kentucky’s previous game against North Carolina Central on Dec. 9.
Garrison turned the ball over and failed to get back on defense, which resulted in Pope yelling at him to “go sit down,” where he then kept him for the remainder of the night.
Kentucky went on to beat the Eagles by 36 points. However, Pope still sent a much-needed message to his team, showing that if your effort is missing, you won’t play.
That message was felt by Garrison. Instead of pouting or reacting negatively, he followed that wake-up call with a great practice and game against the Hoosiers, something that Pope was visibly proud of and excited to talk about.
“He (Garrison) showed up to practice, and we go through practice, and he has a great practice, and we don’t do a ton of conditioning in practice, but this day we did, and on his own, he won every sprint, outsprinted every guard, every single person,” Pope said following the win over Indiana. “I didn’t tell him to do that. I did not pre-prep him to do that. That was just his response. We don’t always respond the right way, but he responded the right way, and I’m super proud of him.”
Garrison followed up his benching with six points, five rebounds, two assists, one steal and one block, which helped the Cats immensely, but his belligerence spoke more volume than the stat sheet ever could.
Dioubate and Garrison will look to bring that same energetic edge on Dec. 20 when the Cats face Rick Pitino and No. 22 St. John’s (6-3) in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta.
Tipoff for that event is set for 12:30 p.m. ET and can be viewed on CBS.
