{"id":200478,"date":"2026-03-21T13:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T13:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200478\/"},"modified":"2026-03-21T13:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-21T13:57:11","slug":"florida-routs-prairie-view-by-59-2nd-biggest-march-madness-margin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/200478\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida routs Prairie View by 59, 2nd-biggest March Madness margin"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 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\u2019s 111-42 win over Tennessee Tech in 1963. Florida advanced to face the South Region\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019s size really caused some problems for us. They shot the ball at a really high percentage,\u201d Smith said. \u201cWe got down a little bit early and were playing catch-up from behind most of the night. That\u2019s 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\u2019s defense. The Panthers went 1 of 15 behind the arc from there, finishing 6 of 22.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. (AP) \u2014 Florida began its national title defense with the second-largest victory margin in NCAA Tournament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200479,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3107,3108,8294,111,1882,28,30,29,92664,89883,2537,89881,64945,25387,110,5537,3115,3116,21682],"class_list":["post-200478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-alex-condon","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-loyola-ramblers","tag-march-madness-ncaa-tournament","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-ncaa-mens-bracket","tag-ncaa-mens-division-i-basketball-championship","tag-olivier-rioux","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-thomas-haugh","tag-todd-golden","tag-tx-state-wire"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200478","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=200478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}