Gators Make Statement in NCAA Tournament Opener After SEC Tournament Struggles

Despite asking the man above for a miracle at halftime, no one came to the Prairie View A&M Panthers’ aid against the top-seeded Florida Gators on Friday, with the defending champions sleepwalking to a 59-point victory.

“We need some help from the lord,” Prairie View A&M head coach Byron Smith said during his halftime interview against Florida.

Florida’s win in the Round of 64 is the second-largest victory all-time in the NCAA Tournament. It trails only Loyola Chicago’s 1963 win over Tennessee Tech, in which the Ramblers beat their opponent by 69 points.

It stamped itself as the best one-seed this weekend, outplaying Duke, Arizona and Michigan in the Round of 64. Compared to these other top seeds, the Gators came out and delivered a statement win to show that they are not handing their title over easily.

“I felt we made a big one,” point guard Boogie Fland said. “We knew we were good coming out here. We saw the couple games before us, the 1-16, so to set that record, I felt like it was a big statement to the world for sure.”

As for the title-defense talk, Gators center Rueben Chinyelu squashed that narrative.

“I would say defending champion, that's history,” he said. “I would say like everybody could be on the same page as me telling that we don't care about that one. That one is gone. This is a new team so we're just going out there because the championship is right there to grab.”

Rebounding the way they did is important, too. The Gators clearly struggled in Nashville in the SEC Tournament. Turnovers plagued them and the 3-point shooting took a steep nosedive in the wrong direction.

However, all those problems evaporated against Prairie View A&M. The offense shot 64 percent from the field, made 10 threes and shot 45 percent from behind the arc, had 29 assists and tallied 18 fast break points.

“For us we had to get back to who we are. I felt like we lost ourselves, not controlling what we can control, and just that practice and just everything after that, we got back to who we are. That's why you saw the joy back on the court,” Fland said.

Moreover, Golden saw a much-needed mentality shift on Friday compared to the previous games.

“We want to continue to win. But when you do, you've got to take some things from it and find ways to improve, and I think we did that this past week,” Golden said. “Our guys were really attentive at practice. They did a really good job of focusing on the areas that we as a staff thought we needed to improve upon. We played with great intent tonight, and when we do that, we're pretty tough.”

Florida now shifts its focus to the Iowa Hawkeyes. A matchup with the South Region’s nine seed is set for 7:10 p.m., and it will be televised on TBS.