MIAMI — For a moment, especially this moment, with UConn coach Dan Hurley emerging as the next potential Los Angeles Lakers coach, pause to consider a similar reality, one that likely would have led to a dramatically different Miami Heat reality.

The NCAA-to-NBA pipeline hardly is a new concept. For every Billy Donovan and Brad Stevens who successfully have traversed the potential pitfalls of the direct ascension from college to NBA head coach in recent decades, there also have been the struggles for likes of Fred Hoiberg, Tim Floyd, Mike Montgomery, Lon Kruger, Jerry Tarkanian, John Beilein and, yes, even former University of Miami and current Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton, and his disastrous 19-63 season with the Washington Wizards in 2000-2001.

And then there was a moment in time in the spring of 1995 that mostly stands as a moment that history forgot — when Bob Huggins was going to be Pat Riley.

Yes, the Bob Huggins who made Final Four appearances at Cincinnati in 1992 and West Virginia in 2010. The combined five-time Coach of the Year in two conferences. The 2022 inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. And the coach who retired amid controversy a year ago.

With a bit more haste by Huggins and a bit less by Riley, it well could have been Huggins, not Riley, who was introduced by Heat owner Micky Arison aboard Carnival’s Imagination in the ship’s Destiny lounge on Sept. 2, 1995.

So, no, this latest play for Hurley is nothing new in terms of hope that NCAA success breeds something similar in the NBA, even with the recent failures outweighing the successes, Beilein most recently lasting all of 54 games with the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2019-20.

All of which makes it all the more chilling thinking about what might have been these past three decades had there not been a pause with Huggins in June 1995, as Riley maneuvered his way from the New York Knicks to the Heat’s front office and bench.

Upon Riley’s formal introduction, Arison in 1995 made it clear how close it had come to the sweat of Huggins instead of the style of Riley.

“We came within 24 hours of hiring Bob Huggins,” Arison said at the time. “Had Pat not resigned that day, we would have that weekend probably hired Bob Huggins. We would have made him an offer. I don’t want to assume, but I think he would have accepted it.”

In the wake of Riley faxing in his New York resignation and the Heat settling a tampering claim by the Knicks ($1 million and 1996 first-round pick Walter McCarty), Huggins said it was about more than being pushed aside.

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