Tonight there was supposed to be a feel-good party in the Rupp Arena – and that’s how it started. Kentucky led Colgate 17-0 until the 13:20 mark of the first half when the Raiders finally scored. The problem was that they didn’t stop scoring for four minutes, going on an 11-0 run. Colgate held on for most of the game, trailing twice at halftime and taking the lead three times in the second half. Kentucky eventually pulled away for a 78-67 victory, but as Mark Pope put it, it was a strange night in Rupp.

“We had a strange energy,” Pope said in the opening remarks of his press conference. “There were all sorts of oddities. The 17-0 (start) was a bit strange. I think it made it even weirder. And then we got weird, but our guys rang the bell like they do and I was really proud of them.”

For the fifth straight game, Kentucky started ice cold with a three-pointer, with Koby Brea the only Wildcat to score from downtown until Jaxson Robinson hit a three-pointer with 15:04 left in the second half, the first of four straight assists Kentucky takes control. The Cats finished 10-for-31 from distance, the first time they made more than 10 three-pointers in a game since Nov. 22 against Jackson State. The three-point defense also improved in the second half, with Kentucky holding Colgate to 3-for-14 from three after allowing 8-for-19 in the first half.

Still, Pope isn’t sure what happened to his squad. Lamont Butler missed his second straight game with an ankle injury and Kerr Kriisa is out indefinitely with a Jones fracture in his foot, but that doesn’t fully explain Kentucky’s panic.

“We talked about it in the locker room afterward, we’re an energy monitoring and management team,” Pope said. “The energy on the floor is really important to us, so we had this discussion during the game and tried to figure out for ourselves why the energy was so low.

“I don’t know if it was because it was 17-0, maybe it worked, maybe it was because they took some really good shots. Maybe I was a little tired. Maybe it was the rotation difference. Maybe it was because none of our point guards were on the field. Maybe it was just, you know, I don’t know. Maybe it’s probably – usually all of these things kind of are, right? A little bit different lineups on the field, but that’s the game for us. So we’re trying to become masters of energy, and games like this can help you learn a little bit more about yourself.”

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Pope was still pondering the strangeness when he sat down with Tom Leach for his post-game chat.

“As I left the court, I kind of shook my head and just heard the famous, iconic words of a great song. “Mom said there would be days like this” just popped into my head. I don’t know why it was a bit tiring tonight.”

Pope praised the crowd at Rupp Arena for helping his team shift the energy. During Kentucky’s second-half three-pointer, fans came to their feet with a rousing chant of “Go Big Blue” that never escapes Pope.

“And then, I don’t know what it was in the second half, a five, six point game at some point, and then all of a sudden these brilliant 20,000 BBN members just stood up, man, and filled that hall with energy. And our guys took advantage of that and went on a crazy run for two minutes.”

Pope constantly preaches the importance of looking at the season one game at a time, even apologizing to reporters for saying each game is the most important of the year. After the big win over Gonzaga and the upcoming game against Louisville, it would be understandable if his players were caught looking ahead. Even after a 17-0 start, that may have been the case. Pope said it was human nature.

“It’s actually interesting because it’s not easy,” he told Leach. “It’s human nature, for example, to have less emotion before a game against a lower-level opponent than before a game against Duke, Gonzaga, Louisville or anyone else, right? In order for us to be great at what we do, we actually have to fight against human nature, and that’s very important to us, we want to understand that this game that we played tonight is hugely, hugely important and that we get involved in it.”

Hopefully we’ll have it figured out before Louisville comes to town.