Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Tennessee basketball, No. 1 in the country for five weeks, went down hard at Florida Tuesday night. There was no drama. The Volunteers were never in it. They lost by 30.

Tennessee arrived in Gainesville as the last undefeated team, 14-0. What happened after that must have been a terrible shock. The Gators jumped ahead 12-0. The Vols went most of seven minutes without a field goal. They missed all 14 three-point attempts in the first half. They trailed by 19 at intermission.

After that, things got worse. Florida romped, 73-43. The Vol output was the lowest in Rick Barnes’ 10 years at Tennessee. Shots just weren’t falling. The coach didn’t hide the truth.

“I thought we lost our poise. I thought we had the wrong guys shooting the ball at the wrong time. Give Florida a ton of credit. They played well. They did on the boards what we like to do to people, which I thought was the difference in the game.”

Florida wasn’t awesome but it was far more aggressive, more physical, faster and fiercely determined. The war under the baskets was football line play without pads. There have been times when the Tennessee team thought it was tough enough.

Barnes was spot on in his assessment of rebounding. The Gators seized 17 more. The Vols never stopped trying but it was no contest.

The coach will have a few hours for repairs. His pressing problem is to not let one loss become two. Barnes must pick up the pieces and put his team back together before Saturday at Texas, 6 p.m., ESPN.

There is no need for me to tell you that life on the road in the Southeastern Conference is a tough way to go.

Numbers from Florida tell part of that story. Tennessee hit 13.79 percent in the first half. It shot 21.4 for the game. It finished four of 29 on threes. It wasn’t even good on free throws – 15 of 25.

Zakai Zeigler was a warrior but didn’t have much to show for the effort – 10 points, one assist. Chaz Lanier scored 10 but hit one three of 16 shots. Jordan Gainey was worse – one for 11. Felix Okpara didn’t run from the fight. He scored eight and had seven rebounds. Igor Melicic had identical results.

Florida’s scoring leader for the season, Walter Clayton, had a poor shooting game and got only seven points. Tough guy Alijah Martin scored 18. Reserve Denzel Aberdeen scored 16. Alex Condon had 12 points and 11 rebounds.

Barnes tried to find a silver lining.

“I told our guys, first thing I said walking in the locker room, I said this is good for us. Because now we’re going to learn what we got to do to get better.”

Barnes talked about early opportunities.

“We had a ton of open shots. I mean, first play the game, Chaz Lanier hadn’t been that open in a long time. And they weren’t going in. I thought we got rushed, kind of became disconnected on the offensive end.”

So, how about 4-of-29 from behind the three-point line?

“That happens sometimes. That’s okay. But you can’t give up the offensive rebounds that we did. You can’t. But give Florida credit. I mean, that’s the mindset. That’s effort. They gave great effort.”

Composure?

Barnes asked himself,” Why are we doing things that we know we’re not supposed to do?” And I think it goes back sometimes to when guys struggle offensively, especially, when they’re missing shots that they think they should make, they let it carry to defense. They lose their concentration and good teams like Florida take advantage.

“I have no idea about some of the things I was looking at out there. I don’t think it was our guys not trying to play hard. I just didn’t think we played very smart.”

Marvin West welcomes comments or questions from readers. His address is marvinwest75@gmail.com