LEXINGTON — Six games into the season, Kentucky basketball already had shown it’s flashy.
Friday, it displayed some fight.
A scuffle in the middle of the second half against Georgia State lit a spark under No. 8 UK. Then, the Wildcats buried the overmatched visitors.
At the time of the confrontation, which occurred with 12:37 remaining, Kentucky led 61-53. The Wildcats scored 44 of the game’s final 67 points to post a 105-76 win at Rupp Arena.
“I thought it was a great night of basketball,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said, “all the saltiness and the whole deal. … I thought our guys — as these things got a little more intense — I thought our guys really pulled together, and it’s so beautiful to see that as a coach. I was really proud of the guys for that.”
The incident started when GSU forward Clash Peters flung UK center Amari Williams to the floor. After the Wildcats took umbrage with the hard foul, the teams had to be separated. After a lengthy review at the scorer’s table, officials handed out multiple technical fouls, two to Kentucky (guards Koby Brea and Otega Oweh) and two to Georgia State (Peters and forward Zarique Nutter). Because officials ruled the technicals canceled out, no player was ejected.
Georgia State coach Jonas Hayes shrugged off the situation, saying the rough-and-tumble play is part of the “identity” his program has forged in the Sun Belt Conference.
“That play was nothing,” he said. “I don’t think (there was) anything sinister about it. It was just a physical play. (There are) clashes like that every day in practice. So that’s nothing new. And if you’re not used to that, you can kind of get taken aback. Not to say Kentucky wasn’t used to it, but we see that every single day.”
And from “his vantage point,” he admitted, the Wildcats (7-0) more than answered the call.
“They were just as physical as we were,” he said, “and they matched our physicality.”
On this night, that wasn’t reserved for players alone. Pope inserted himself into the proceedings, dashing onto the floor to break up the ruckus. He wrapped his arms around Nutter and removed the Georgia State forward from the fracas.
Pope joked he worried about pulling his hamstring.
And a certain spectator.
“So I grabbed one of the Georgia State players that was kind of jumping in late, and then my next reaction was like, ‘Where is Lee Anne?'” Pope said, referring to his wife. “Because I’m telling you, like, at one point she could be running on the floor, knocking someone out. And I’m like, ‘I cannot have that.’ So that was actually my second thing: I was like, ‘All right, I got this (situation) taken care of. Make sure Lee Anne is under control over there.’
“This was, actually, (her) favorite game so far. Lee Anne loves it when it gets salty.”
Pope expects the Panthers (4-4) were a look at the future. Namely, UK’s next two outings, when travels to on Clemson (in Clemson, South Carolina) and Gonzaga (in Seattle) next week.
“Two true road games against elite-level talent, and both insanely physical teams,” Pope said. “Clemson, incredibly physical. And then Gonzaga. I know Gonzaga, well, right? We’ve been messing with that for a long time, and (Gonzaga) Coach (Mark) Few is probably the best coach in all the college basketball — or close to it; I don’t know how to rate him. And Gonzaga is always insanely physical. It’s a part of their team people miss sometimes.”
Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at rblack@gannett.com and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
