Chinyelu finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds, with All-America forward Thomas Haugh<\/a> at 14 points and forward Alex Condon<\/a> with 13. Guard Xaivian Lee<\/a> had 10 points and five assists without a turnover, while backup guard Urban Klavzar<\/a> added 10 points. With just under six minutes to go, the UF bench was emptied and, eventually, all 12 scholarship\u00a0players who checked in got in the scoring column, as did 7-foot-9 walk-on Olivier Rioux<\/a>, who had a late slam-dunk, much to the delight of the partisan home crowd.\u00a0<\/p>\n UF shot 64% for the game and totaled 29 assists (only seven turnovers), both program tournament records, as was\u00a0the final team point total and 59-point victory margin. Each bested numbers from UF’s 112-69 defeat of Jackson State that opened the 2007 tournament.\u00a0<\/p>\n Prairie View buried five 3-pointers through the game’s first six-plus minutes, the last one tying the score at 15-all at the 13:37 mark. The next field goal the Panthers hit came nearly eight minutes later, as the Gators tore away for a run of 18 consecutive points, then finished the half with a 27-2 blitz, including the last 17 of the period to go into the locker room with a 60-21 lead.<\/p>\n The 39-point margin was the largest for the Gators at halftime of their 72 all-time tournament games.\u00a0
\n<\/p>\n Turning Point\u00a0 Email senior writer\u00a0Chris Harry<\/a> at\u00a0chrish@gators.ufl.edu<\/a>. Find his story archives\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Happened TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0 \u2013 The top-seeded Florida Gators blasted 16-seed Prairie View A&M 114-55 in opening-round play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-200039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1Q5A2221_tG15z.JPG\")
\nUF point guard Boogie Fland with one of many layups for the Gators Friday night.
<\/p>\n
\nThe instant after the Panthers’ last 3-pointer of the first half.
\n\u00a0
\nStaggering Statistic
\nUF outscored Prairie View 38-0 in the paint through the first 20 minutes and 64-10 for the game.
\n\u00a0
\nUp Next
\nFlorida (27-7) will play 9-seed Iowa (22-12) in Sunday’s round of 32 at a time to be determined. The Hawkeyes defeated 8-seed Clemson 67-61 in Friday night’s early game. UF and Iowa have never played in men’s basketball.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n