BREAKING;coach Mark pope set to part’s ways with  $100 million mega Star deal in Kentucky basketball…

BREAKING;coach Mark pope set to part’s ways with  $100 million mega Star deal in Kentucky basketball…

As pleased as Pope and his players were about brutally dispatching the Panthers after the skirmish, the Wildcats aren’t necessarily yearning for drama going forward.

“Hopefully it doesn’t take that — we don’t have to go through a scuffle before we score that many points and go on a run like that and get stops,” said fifth-year senior guard Jaxson Robinson, who led UK with 19 points on 9-of-14 shooting. “But I think it was really huge and changed the momentum of the game.”

In the throes of a lengthy college basketball season — one Kentucky hopes stretches into April, when the national championship game will be contested in San Antonio — a team faces its share of tests.

UK passed another with flying colors Friday.

“As an athlete — a performer is really what you are, right?” Pope said. “And the way we play, which is so mentally demanding, you can’t get too carried away emotionally. You’ve got to keep taking all the emotion and funneling it back to focus.

“I thought our guys did a spectacular job of doing that — and, at the same time, meeting the physicality of the game.”

Tougher competition awaits, for sure.

But as November comes to a close, Kentucky is perfectly balancing the tightrope of emotion, which ebbs and flows throughout a 40-minute game.

“I was proud that they kept a lid on (their attitudes), too,” Pope said. “Like, (the scuffle) never became distracting. It became focusing.

“And that’s the difference between winning and losing.”