Given the backdrop of Duke having to stage a furious comeback against Siena and Michigan having first-half struggles against Howard, there might have been a couple of eyebrows raised early when Prairie View A&M hit their fifth three-pointer of the game to tie things up with Florida at 15-15. The Gators weren’t necessarily playing poorly, but there were some things defensively they could have done better.
Todd Golden immediately made an adjustment, and the end result was a blowout that even the Vegas odds makers couldn’t have envisioned.
Florida blows out Prairie View A&M and moves on to play Iowa
Vegas put the spread at 35.5 points coming into the game. That by itself was the largest spread of the opening round.
Florida also covered that spread by halftime. Given that it was 15-15 seven minutes into the game, being up by 39 at halftime was emblematic of what Florida is capable of when it's on a roll. It’s easy to state this is what a No. 1 vs. No. 16 is supposed to look like, but even by opening game standards, this was an even larger blowout than most could have conjured up.
At the core of Florida’s run was Golden challenging Florida to not sag on the arc as the Gators challenged Prairie View A&M up top and forced the Panthers to go into the paint if they wanted to score. That adjustment shut down any prayer Prairie View A&M had as the Panthers had zero points in the paint in the first half. After making its first five three-point attempts, the Panthers would go on to miss their next 15 in a row.
The 39-point halftime lead was the 2nd largest halftime lead in NCAA Tournament history, and the final margin of 59 points was also the 2nd largest margin of victory in an NCAA Tournament game.
Florida’s night ended up being so easy in the end that Rueben Chinyelu checked out of the game with eight minutes to play. The rest of Florida’s starters followed shortly after. Even Olivier Rioux scored a basket in this one.
The Gators will move on to play Iowa, and ultimately, Friday’s win in Tampa is simply the first of six wins in a row Florida needs to repeat. And when Florida takes the court on Sunday, the score will start back at 0-0.
But for at least one night in Tampa, it was great to be a Florida Gator.