{"id":200139,"date":"2026-03-21T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200139\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T06:00:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T06:00:17","slug":"florida-begins-title-defense-with-59-point-rout-of-prairie-view-2nd-biggest-margin-in-ncaa-tourney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200139\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida begins title defense with 59-point rout of Prairie View, 2nd-biggest margin in NCAA tourney"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Florida began its national title defense with the second-largest victory margin in NCAA Tournament<\/a> history, pounding Prairie View A&M 114-55 on Friday night.<\/p>\n

Boogie Fland scored 16 points to lead seven players in double figures for the top-seeded Gators (27-7), whose 59-point margin fell short of only Loyola Chicago’s 111-42 win over Tennessee Tech in 1963. Florida advanced to face the South Region’s No. 9 seed, Iowa, in the second round on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Florida went on runs of 18-0 and 17-0 in the first half to turn a 15-all tie into a 60-21 lead at the break. The Gators shot 75% before halftime and 64.3% for the game against the 16th-seeded Panthers (19-18).<\/p>\n

After top overall seed Duke struggled in the first round<\/a> against Siena and fellow No. 1 Michigan let Howard hang around<\/a> for the entire first half, Florida had no trouble whatsoever.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we made a big (statement),\u201d Fland said. \u201cWe saw a couple of games before us, 1-16. So to set that record, I felt like it was big, and a big statement for the world for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late in the second half, 7-foot-9 freshman Olivier Rioux \u2014 the world’s tallest teenager before he turned 20 last month \u2014 got in on the action with a putback dunk.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fland made all six of his shots. Rueben Chinyelu had 14 points and 13 rebounds, while the other two members of a dominant frontcourt \u2014 Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon \u2014 finished with 14 and 13 points, respectively.<\/p>\n

Prairie View, a 35 1\/2-point underdog according to BetMGM Sportsbook, didn\u2019t have a 2-point basket through the first nine minutes, but kept pace early by converting five of its first seven 3-point attempts to pull even at 15-all.<\/p>\n

Chinyelu scored nine points during the ensuing 18-0 run, and the rout was on before a sellout crowd in what essentially was a home game with coach Todd Golden’s squad playing only a two-hour drive south of its campus in Gainesville.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we had a 38-0 paint advantage in the first half, scoring-wise,\u201d Golden said. \u201cSo we weren’t settling. We were getting good shots. I thought we played with great purpose all night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Condon, Haugh, Chinyelu and Fland all reached double-figure scoring in the first half.<\/p>\n

Prairie View, a historically Black school located outside of Houston, made it to March Madness after going 5-27 a season earlier. The Panthers defeated Lehigh in the First Four and weren\u2019t strangers to facing teams from major conferences after having lost on the road to Texas A&M, Missouri, LSU and Oklahoma State early this season.<\/p>\n

Donate Horne scored 12 points for the Southwestern Athletic Conference champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTough game,\u201d Prairie View A&M coach Byron Smith said, adding the Gators were simply a \u201cbigger, faster, quicker team.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously Florida’s size really caused some problems for us. They shot the ball at a really high percentage,” Smith said. \u201cWe got down a little bit early and were playing catch-up from behind most of the night. That’s a tough way to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Golden makes an early tweak<\/p>\n

After Prairie View made five of its first seven 3-point attempts, Golden adjusted Florida’s defense. The Panthers went 1 of 15 behind the arc from there, finishing 6 of 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn’t do a job in the first couple of minutes of guarding the 3-point line, and once we righted that we accomplished what we needed to,\u201d Golden said.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP March Madness bracket: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ncaa-mens-bracket<\/a> and coverage: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/march-madness<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Florida began its national title defense with the second-largest victory margin in NCAA Tournament history,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,25387,110],"class_list":["post-200139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-olivier-rioux","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200139","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=200139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}