UWF Opens Its Division I Era With a Statement: Argonauts 127, Southeastern Baptist 42
West Florida's first game as a Division I program was not close. The Argonauts put 127 points on their home floor in Pensacola on Monday night, beating Southeastern Baptist by 85 in head coach Tanner Smith's debut.
The University of West Florida's Division I era began with an exclamation point. The Argonauts routed Southeastern Baptist College 127-42 on Monday night at the Field House in Pensacola, in the season opener for both programs and the first meeting between them - a final margin of 85 points in the first game West Florida has ever played as an NCAA Division I program.
The context is what makes the number matter. West Florida joined the Atlantic Sun Conference on July 1 for its first Division I campaign, arriving off a 25-9 final Division II season that included the program's second Gulf South Conference championship. Monday was also a debut on the bench: head coach Tanner Smith, named to the job in April, coached his first game leading the Argonauts - and his team scored 127 points in it.
No individual scoring line was published in the results sources the desk read on Monday night, and the story claims none; the box score will fill in the names when the university posts it. What is already in the record is the shape of the night: a home opener, a first-year Division I program, a first-year head coach, and a scoreboard that read 127-42 when it ended. The Argonauts' first Division I season continues with the schedule the opener previewed this morning - and the program that won its last Division II conference title has announced, in the loudest available way, that it does not intend to spend its first Division I year being polite.
