Memories from a better time.

West Virginia’s locker room was a fun place to be the past two weeks, a reality I’m sure you can understand having watched, listened to or read about the Mountaineers throughout this season. Believe it or not, there was a buzz inside those doors again Thursday night, that after the humbling and historic demolition at the hands of this Kentucky juggernaut.

For the first 10 or so minutes the locker room was open to the media, Daxter Miles was nowhere to be found. If you thought there was blood in the water before, you should have sensed the coming rip job rising against the freshman from Baltimore who was, at best, taking his time and getting himself together. At worst — and let’s be honest, this is what everyone paying attention was assuming — Miles was hiding to avoid the inevitable.

Assistant coach Erik Martin seemed to intervene. He spoke to Miles, and Miles soon dropped down into a chair and sort of faced the music. Every time the topic was his 36-1 comment, every time he was asked to discuss the game, he used some version of “Kentucky played great.” He was better when talking about the season, the seniors, the strides the team has to take in the offseason, but he was undeniably wrought over what happened to him and to his team and likely how the two were tied together.

And let’s be clear about this: Kentucky thrived on its own Thursday night but also benefited from Miles and his mouth. The Wildcats didn’t hide from it after the game. They more or less thanked Miles — “We felt like that was nonsense, so we just came out and killed ’em,” and that’s from Kentucky’s official website! — and I mean in word and deed.

36 and won

— Devin Booker (@DevinBook) March 27, 2015

(Aside: So proud the media hasn’t praised Kentucky or taken the Wildcats to task, or both, for not stating this before the game. I feel like we’re at that point.)

Miles wasn’t right all night. How he handled everything was going to be a variable to watch during the game, because you don’t know how a kid’s going to react to something that grew to be so massive, to be something he cannot control. It went poorly. He was scoreless and looked shy at times, and though he’s not a very good free-throw shooter, he looked a bit more empty than normal when he went 0 for 2 in the second half — to cheers, of course. That’s not Miles. He’s the smiling, clapping, 3-point hoisting guard who tries to get open late in games so he can shoot the free throws to clinch the outcome … never mind he misses about half his foul shots.

Verbally, the Mountaineers didn’t much mind the extra heat Miles made for them. In fact, the man at the top didn’t even believe in that reality.

“I think that’s a bunch of BS,” Bob Huggins said. “I think once you throw the ball up, you play. It was a freshman that said it, and I’m kind of happy he had some confidence. I’m kind of happy he wasn’t hiding under a chair somewhere, you know? There’s nothing wrong with having some confidence and wanting to go out and compete. They just were way better than we were.”

That’s what they were all saying. I don’t know what they were thinking, but I do think you have to believe them because Miles didn’t say anything they didn’t think was true.

“I don’t feel bad for him at all,” Tarik Phillip said. “He’s a young dude, with no experience.”

Phillip insisted Miles didn’t make a mistake, and Jon Holton appreciated what happened.

“I respect Dax for saying that,” Holton said. “If he’d come in and say, ‘Oh, I don’t know if we’re going to win,’ then, no offense, all of you are going to say he was scared. Dax is from Baltimore. He ain’t scared. Baltimore’s a tough neighborhood. That’s how he was raised. He was raised a winner. Deep down inside, he really wanted to win. He didn’t do it for the attention. He didn’t do it for any of that. I respect him a lot for what he said. He’s got heart.”

And while you got the feeling nobody blamed Miles for what his words became, you also sensed they could have done without it, either before or after that whooping almost the size of the story that surrounded Miles.

“No offense to y’all, but that’s what y’all do, man,” said Devin Williams, who did something similar last season when he said the third time would be the charm for him and his team against Texas in the Big 12 tournament, and it was not. “I experienced that last year. It probably wasn’t as big as this stage, but I experienced it last year. I hope it’ll be a humbling moment for him.”

Williams is right, and I’m mad about it. Not mad at him. Mad about it. This is what people do, whether they are in the media or get a press pass to work among the media. On the surface, what Miles did was innocent. Bold as hell, but no more bold than he or his teammates are known to be. Juwan Staten said Sunday that Kentucky wasn’t a great offensive team. Nobody turned that into 52-point headlines. Miles made news because he wouldn’t kiss the ring. The prevalent line of questioning in WVU’s locker room Wednesday was, “Do you have a chance?” People who cover Kentucky were seriously asking that or why the Mountaineers thought they could beat Kentucky — and “why” is a much different question than “how,” don’t you think?

It gets old after a while, and Miles and the Mountaineers grew tired of it. They thought they were going to win. No matter how wrong that looks today, how is that a bad opinion? Even John Calipari understood, if not appreciated, what Miles said.

“I mean, what, someone’s going to come in and say, ‘We’re going to lose?’ They’re going to say they’re going to win,” he said. “But we say at some point you have to step in the ring. We’ll lift the rope.”

Still, Miles is asked a question and answers, and it gets out of control. He’s getting blasted by people for being brazen and honest and for his ability to give you quotes that look great in print. I think normally I would have a problem with Miles’ act after the game last night, but how can you blame him for not giving the media what it wants? The very people who went after him for talking are now going after him for not talking, and it’s insane.

I thought about this yesterday: I can count nine people who covered WVU during the first two rounds for the first time all season — national and regional publications who were new to the Mountaineers — and who came up to me and said, “Man, Miles is great.” Some of them found that out on their own. Some of them were directed to Miles by me. I hope we don’t lose that, like we lost Clint Trickett’s Twitter during the season. (Another aside: Special fauxccasion!)

This is an unenviable moment for Miles, and not one that time is going to easily forget given the blowout, his zero points and the way Kentucky made it all look so farcical without any trouble whatsoever. Kentucky is fantastic, and that that win/loss was worthily historic. Consider no Sweet Sixteen team had shot the ball worse than WVU did, no Sweet Sixteen team had scored fewer points since 1975 (the tournament expanded to 64 in 1985), no Sweet Sixteen team had ever lost by more (1 seed Louisville beat 12 seed Arizona by 39 in 2009) and no Bob Huggins team had ever lost a game by as much.

But let’s also be honest: It wasn’t solely about Miles like it wasn’t solely about officiating. They were side dishes, sure, but Kentucky was as good as advertised for 20 hellacious minutes and WVU was stuck in the worst-case scenario one last time for 40 brutal minutes. You could believe all you wanted that this was the place for WVU or this was the time for Kentucky, but that was never true.

Kentucky’s third 3 made it 30-10, and things got so bad that WVU went from not scoring points to actually losing points. During the media timeout with 7:36 left in the half, Staten’s earlier spell-snapping 3 was changed to a 2, and the Mountaineers trailed by 21. The hole was as deep as 27 points late in the first half, and the Wildcats led 44-18 at halftime, WVU’s least-prolific half of the season. When Kentucky opened up against No. 16 seed Hampton last week, the score was 41-22 at the half.

“It felt like deja vu at the beginning of the year when we were trying to find ourselves,” Williams said. “We got away from what we do.”

The lack of suspense continued the tournament’s trend. In the first round, higher seeds went 27-5, including 8-0 in WVU’s Midwest Region and 15-1 on the first Friday. WVU was one of the four No. 5 seeds to beat the No. 12, the first time in eight years a No. 5 wasn’t upset in the first round. In the second round, the higher seeds went 13-3, including 4-0 in the West and South regions.

Of the 16 teams to move on to second weekend, nine were top-four seeds. Only one was worse than a No. 8 seed, and UCLA is the sort of place that will put up only so long with coach Steve Alford turning in seasons that get the Bruins the No. 11 seed.

WVU was the No. 5 seed, and Kentucky was the No. 1, not just in the region, but the entire tournament, that after finishing the regular season as the unanimous No. 1 in both the media and coaches’ polls. The odds were already against the Mountaineers doing what nobody else had done and only a few had even come close to this season, and the results in this tournament didn’t move the needle.

The nation’s best in field-goal percentage defense held WVU to 24.1 percent, the third-lowest figure in school history. As bad as the Mountaineers started the first half, it was worse after halftime, when they opened 0 for 11 and didn’t make a shot for the first 8:18. Jevon Carter’s layup was followed by a steal at the 11:32 mark, the first time all game WVU turned Kentucky over with its press. Tarik Phillip converted with a layup and a 54-23 score.