Friday night should have been the kind of moment Bruce Pearl has had far too few of since the former Tennessee coach took over the Auburn men's basketball program in spring 2014.
His Tigers - despite starters Austin Wiley and Danjel Purifoy being held out because of FBI charges against former assistant Chuck Person - easily won their season opener over Norfolk State by a 102-74 score in front of a packed house.
Beyond that, Pearl, one of the Southeastern Conference's most fervent cheerleaders, could check the league's scoreboard and know that all 13 schools in action (Florida won't play until Monday) not only posted victories but won by an an average of 27.8 points.
Making that more impressive was Texas A&M's 88-65 neutral-court rout of 11th-ranked West Virginia, especially because the Aggies were without star post player Robert Williams and point guard J.J. Caldwell, who were suspended.
But like much of the rest of college hoops these days, Pearl's mood was darkened by what is taking place off the court, given that Person is under indictment on federal bribery, conspiracy and fraud charges from an FBI investigation into widespread corruption in college basketball.
So despite his team's big win, Pearl told the media after Auburn's victory that he was "kind of looking forward to tonight being over with."
The FBI probe kind of has a lot of schools wishing the season already was over. It has cost Hall of Fame coach Rick Pitino his job at Louisville. It has attached itself to assistants at Louisville, Arizona, Oklahoma State and Auburn. Alabama parted ways with assistant Kobie Baker shortly after charges against Person were announced. The investigation threatens to soil much of the college game before it's completed, which could be more than a year from now.
"Anytime you see that the FBI is involved in something, it gets your attention," Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy said last month. "I think everybody took a step back and said, 'OK, wow, this is a game changer.'"
Added Kentucky coach John Calipari: "Behaviors are going to change now. Like, you're not going to go do something (wrong) because, 'Am I going to jail?'"
Unfortunately for the SEC, all of this comes as a distraction to a league that may be the best it has been in 20 years when compared to the rest of the nation.
In ESPN's most recent "bracketology" for the 2018 NCAA tournament, six SEC men's teams - Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt - were predicted to earn invitations with a seventh, Arkansas, just missing the field.
Check out NBADraft.net's most recent 2018 NBA draft predictions, and you'll find five SEC players among the top 12 and four of them - Missouri freshman Michael Porter (No. 1 overall), A&M sophomore Williams (10), Alabama freshman Collin Sexton (11) and Mississippi State sophomore Lamar Peters (12) - don't play for Kentucky. Kevin Knox is the highest-rated Wildcat at No. 9.
Go to ESPN's recent listing of the 50 players to watch in the upcoming season and seven hail from the SEC, and Kentucky has only one of those.
"Just look at the league last year," said Mississippi State coach Ben Howland, who took UCLA to Final Fours in 2006, 2007 and 2008. "We had three teams in the Elite Eight, and if Florida and South Carolina don't play each other, we might have had two in the Final Four. And we should be better this time around."
It could be much better almost everywhere except Kentucky - which must replace more than 90 percent of its points from last season's Elite Eight squad - and South Carolina, which also suffered heavy losses.
For proof of Kentucky's potential slide, the Wildcats' 73-63 win over Utah Valley on Friday night was the smallest margin of victory among the the SEC's 13 competing schools. Another troublesome measuring stick for Big Blue: The last time the Cats had this little returning firepower was the 2012-13 season, when they lost in the opening round of the National Invitation Tournament.
But Friday's openers also hinted that Tennessee - which led 46-14 at halftime and had no turnovers in the opening 20 minutes of an 88-53 win over Presbyterian - Arkansas (95-56 over Samford) and LSU, under former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach Will Wade, all could make some noise.
"We've got a good group of guys and they want to be a good team," Rick Barnes said after his Volunteers' impressive showing.
But it was something he said during the SEC's preseason media event in October that may best frame this season moving forward, and the state of the sport for several seasons into the future.
"Obviously these are some tough days, dark days for college basketball, but the fact is the game is bigger and it will be better," Barnes said. "You hate to see it, you really do. But the fact is it's been going on for probably a hundred years, things that weren't supposed to be going on, and you hope this is going to put the brakes on it for a little bit. But one thing that will happen is the game will come out better."
In the SEC, at least on the court, if Friday night be any indication, it already is.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.