For years, the most contagious disease in Kentucky was the BDP.

Billy Donovan Paranoia.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, as the ever-energetic Florida coach reeled in one McDonald's All-American after another on the recruiting trail. You couldn't go on a University of Kentucky basketball Internet site or turn on a sports talk radio show in this town without being swamped by predictions of the coming age of Gator supremacy.

Coupled, of course, with denunciations of Tubby Smith's myriad and supposed recruiting "failures."

All of which, as a backdrop, made what happened in Rupp Arena Sunday striking.

First, Kentucky applied an 82-62 spanking to the Gators. It was the eighth time in the last nine meetings that a Smith-led team has bested a Donovan-led team.

Afterward, the Florida coach faced the media and said he thought he might need to change his recruiting philosophy to look more like ...

Tubby's.

One of the problems at UF has been attrition. One way that ensures attrition is by signing elite players who are on -- or think they should be -- the fast track to the NBA.

Mega-recruits Mike Miller and Donnell Harvey bailed after Florida's run to the 2000 NCAA finals. Miller had stayed only two years, Harvey one.

In 2001, Florida seemed to have landed the power-ball jackpot of recruiting classes.

The Gators signed the player North Carolina most coveted (swing man James White). They got the player Duke most coveted (David Lee). They signed the consensus No. 1 player in the country (Kwame Brown).

Problem was, Brown turned pro without ever reaching Gainesville. White got impatient waiting for playing time and transferred to Cincinnati...

Meanwhile, after Kentucky's Smith got caught short of players following a rash of transfers early in his Kentucky tenure, he has done a masterful job of finding quality talent below the radar of the recruiting gurus.