Three Keys to Victory for Florida Gators vs. Prairie View A&M

Although the Florida Gators are a one-seed and the Prairie View A&M Panthers are tabbed as a 16-seed, that does not mean the Gators are guaranteed to advance to the next round. Anyone is capable of losing in March.

For the Gators, here are three keys to a victory on Friday in their opening game of the NCAA Tournament against the Panthers. Tip-off in Tampa is at 9:25 p.m. with television coverage on TNT.

Minimize Mistakes

Turnovers have plagued the Gators in their past two contests on the hardwood. They combined for 32 total turnovers against Kentucky and Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament, gifting the two programs 42 points.

Many teams working with less talent rely on fundamental basketball and winning the turnover battle in March. Those are areas where the lower seeds take advantage of the higher-ranked teams who enter with a preconceived thought that they are going to walk all over their opponents.

It also factors into what makes the Panthers who they are. Prairie View A&M ranks sixth in the country in forced turnovers, averaging 15.3 per game.

Florida is at its best when moving the ball around quickly and pushing the tempo; both require them to be in possession rather than defending.

Play Through the Frontcourt

In the tournament's starting portion, Florida needs to play to their strengths. There is no need to oversimplify the game plan and force the ball into anyone’s hands other than the frontcourt.

Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu and Micah Handlogten were key in earning the Gators a top seed. Get them the ball early and often, and let the size win out.

It should be easier to work through the bigs as well, considering that the Panthers lack the size to match up with the Gators. Their tallest player is listed at 6-foot-10, and they only have two players above 6-foot-9.

Keep Fouls to a Minimum

Prairie View A&M does a great job at getting to the foul line, sitting at No. 14 in the country in attempts per game entering the tournament.

The upside, if there is one, is that they don’t connect at an extremely high percentage, shooting 75.4 percent from the line. However, they are making 19.2 per game, which has them ninth.

Condon and Chinyelu are averaging 2.8 and 2.9 fouls, respectively. Haugh is averaging 2.4. They’ll need to keep their fouls down to a minimum to make it that much harder for the Panthers to score on the Gators.