MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Former WVU men’s basketball standout Darris Nichols will return to the Coliseum, as the Mountaineers will host Florida in the annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge.
The match-ups for the challenge games were announced by the conferences on Wednesday.
All 10 games will be played on Jan. 30, with starting times to be announced at a later date. All the games will be televised by an ESPN network.
Nichols will be in his sixth season as an assistant under Mike White at Florida.
As a point guard with the Mountaineers, Nichols scored 993 points and dished out 399 assists from 2004-08. He was a member of three NCAA tournament teams and also a starter on the 2007 NIT championship squad, in which he hit the game-winning shot at the buzzer to beat Mississippi State in the semifinals.
WVU is 3-6 all-time against the Gators and have lost the last three meetings, the most recent being a 66-56 loss in Madison Square Garden during the 2018-19 season.
The other games in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge: Texas at Kentucky, Kansas at Tennessee, Auburn at Baylor, Arkansas at Oklahoma State, Iowa State at Mississippi State, Texas Tech at LSU, TCU at Missouri, Alabama at Oklahoma and Texas A&M at Kansas State.
WVU is 2-6 in SEC/Big 12 Challenge games.
Florida finished 19-12 last season and tied for fourth in the SEC with a 11-7 conference mark.
The Gators return three starters in forward Keyontae Johnson — an all-SEC pick last season after averaging 14.0 points and 7.1 rebounds per game — as well as guards Noah Locke and Scottie Lewis.
Florida point guard Andrew Nembhard transferred to Gonzaga in the offseason, but the Gators did sign 4-star recruit Niels Lane out of New Jersey.
The Big 12 is 4-1-2 in the challenge.
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