This was the best part, when you think about it: The Columbia Lions were unimpressed with themselves. Here they were, dying moments of a basketball game that would soon be the source of bewilderment for college basketball fans everywhere — “Wait, that score’s backward, isn’t it?” — and the least surprised people inside Finneran Pavilion were the Lions themselves.

“Honestly,” Geronimo Rubio de la Rosa says, “it wasn’t that big a surprise to us.”

Everywhere else? Yes. Columbia 90, Villanova 80, that was a surprise. That was a stunner. Maybe Villanova isn’t where it was a few years ago under Jay Wright, but this was still a Big East team vs. an Ivy League team, still inside the Cats’ lair, and the Lions seized a 10-point lead midway though the second half and simply eased on home.

That was Nov. 6.