If you think Bob Huggins had a miserable time yesterday, you should hear about the 1983-84 season he spent as a coach in the Sunshine State. “I hated it,” he said.

In 41 seasons now as a college player, graduate assistant, assistant and head coach, Huggins has spent two outside of West Virginia and Ohio. One was the 2006-07 season at Kansas State, where he would probably still be if not for a phone call from WVU. The other is the true outlier, a season at Division II UCF.

There were other battles UCF couldn’t win, and those bothered Huggins deeply. It was a small school back then, so small that Huggins remembered one dorm. There weren’t many anchors to keep people on campus, and basketball wasn’t one of them.

“On Friday nights, Saturdays and Sundays,” Huggins said, “you didn’t see a soul on campus if it wasn’t somebody riding a bike through it.”

The arena was tiny and attendance was even smaller, which didn’t make much sense to Huggins at first.

Machock’s predecessor, Torchy Clark, won 20 or more games seven times, had his team ranked in the top 10 in seven straight years and made the postseason six times in his 14 seasons. Clark’s sons, Bo and Mike, both played for him and are still the school’s top two all-time leading scorers. Bo once scored 70 in a game and led the nation in scoring as a freshman in 1976. The Clarks were even profiled in Sports Illustrated in 1979.

Still, the sport hadn’t caught on in that region.

“There’d be a big national game on one of the networks and they’d play it everywhere but Florida,” Huggins said. “They were playing an old war movie. It was just unbelievable. There was a huge emphasis on football. Nothing against football, but there was a lack of passion for basketball.”

If yesterday was any indication, don’t expect to see Miami, Florida State, USF or anyone else from this state on the schedule soon.

That was a demolition, the nightmarish intersection of a really bad day for your team and a really good day for their team. Coming into the game, I thought Florida was better than its record. The Gators played ranked teams tough and performed better in the SEC than outside of it, indicative of a first-year coach and staff finding way. I thought WVU was … not N0. 9. Not in its current shape.

Those two ran into one another, and the result can easily and fairly be explained by saying one team played above its level to beat a team that played below its level. Even Florida agreed.

“We’ve had games when we played with tremendous energy and we’ve been off the charts defensively and we couldn’t throw it in the ocean,” first-year Florida coach Mike White said. “[This] was one of those nights we put it all together. Obviously, we’re not 17 points better than West Virginia.”

WVU’s players sort of shook their heads at how well the Gators shot the ball, which was a little bit unexpected. It’s not what they do, and who was doing it didn’t make much sense, either. But the Mountaineers need to know they have some problems, too. “I have concerns after every game,” Bob Huggins said, “but I see the things we’re not doing well, and I think people can exploit it.”

Devin Williams was 4-for-15. He took two jumpers, and he made and missed one. So he was 3-for-13 in the areas he normally operates. Jevon Carter didn’t score or do much else after halftime. Dax Miles continues to perplex. Those two were 4-for-14/1-for-9. The real trouble came when Jaysean Paige and Tarik Phillip found quick and early foul trouble on the day WVU knew bench productivity was a mandate in the absence of Jon Holton. Paige was plus-7 in the first half, Phillip plus-3. WVU trailed by 14 at halftime.

Holton would have helped, and the traps would have likely been more confident and effective and not allowed the Gators so many open looks. (Aside: I’m a little surprised Huggins didn’t ditch the press or rely more on straight-up halfcourt defense, except that turnovers were the only way his team was going to get back in the game … provided his players didn’t botch transition chances, which they did.) But Holton isn’t a ball-handler, the Mountaineers have now had more turnovers than assists in six straight games. It’s killing them. Totally negates the extra possessions they create with offensive rebounds and steals/turnovers.

Those easy chances are important, too, because WVU isn’t running a lot of offense. Not well, at least. I think Nate Adrian is still posting up and waiting for an entry pass, shot clock be damned. And when the team concept dips, players step outside of it to help, and that’s been to a detriment, too.

You can sense Huggins frustrations. In one moment, he says players can pay in the form of playing time if they don’t simply do what they’re supposed to do. But then in the next moment he admits minutes can’t be thinned or eliminated because the team couldn’t do what it does. It’s the quintessential conflict of needing 10 or so players and having a few who aren’t helping, and the fix seems to he hoping players trending one way can find a way back the other way.