Gators Prove Their Dominance with Blowout Win Over Prairie View

TAMPA – There was rejoicing among the Prairie View A&M faithful when Corey Wells fired in a 3-pointer from the left of the key with 13:41 left in the first half to pull the 16-seed Panthers dead even with No. 1 Florida, 15-15. Hope sprung eternally.

Okay, hope lasted for 31 seconds, which isn’t exactly eternity. Now, what happened in the final 13:19 of the half probably seemed like an eternity to the Panthers, who gave up runs of 18-0, 10-0 and 17-0. Pure carnage. The Gators outscored Prairie View 45-6 for a 60-21 halftime lead.

This was nuclear winter and there was still an entire half of basketball to be played. By the time the clock struck zero, the Gators had a 114-55 statement win at Benchmark International Arena. Not only did Florida (27-7) look the part of the No. 1 seed in the South Region, but the Gators did a dandy impersonation of THE team to beat the remainder of the NCAA Tournament.

The win advanced the Gators to the second round where they will meet No. 9 seed Iowa (22-12) at 7:10 Sunday evening (TBS) for the right to advance to the Sweet 16 in Houston.

Evident from the beginning Friday night was the connection the Gators had at both ends of the court. This was not the team that looked bored and out of synch in Nashville. Rather, this was the team that went 16-1 in SEC play after losing its conference opener to Missouri. This was the team that won all but three of its 16 SEC wins by at least 13 points. Prairie View was already down 13 with 10 minutes remaining in the first half and the Gators were just getting warmed up.

Now, no one will mistake Prairie View for an SEC caliber team, but the way the Gators were playing, it really wouldn’t have mattered. Friday night, the Gators played like they were on a mission. Every bit as important, the Gators played like a team that was truly joyful for another chance to play together. This is the lose and go home time of the year, so every single game has to be approached with the attitude of squeezing out every ounce of joy and fun that can be had.

“The fun was back” is how Alex Condon described Florida’s effort, a statement echoed by Micah Handlogten who said, “Last weekend in Nashville wasn’t fun. When we are connected and playing together the way we know we can play, the game is fun and we can have games like this.”

The way the Gators gave up 3-pointers in the first 6:19 of the game made it seem like there was still a hangover from the Southeastern Conference Tournament games last Friday and Saturday. The Panthers had nothing going in the paint where Florida’s superior size made treading dangerous, but they found openings from three and buried a few shots. The Prairie View faithful thought they could hang with the mighty Gators and maybe some in the crowd of 20,112 sardined in the arena all the way up to the rafters sensed not much had changed since Nashville.

Little did they know the tsunami that was about to drown out all the hope Prairie View A&M could muster up. Almost like a secret button was pushed, the Gators elevated their level of play from ho-hum to overwhelmingly dominant. During a media time out after a running hook by Tommy Haugh gave the Gators a 17-15 lead with 12:52 remaining, there was an unspoken "enough of this nonsense" agreement in the Florida huddle.

Prairie View was about to become an armadillo on a highway that gets hit by an 18-wheeler barreling along at 80 miles per hour.

“We had to treat them like they were a top-seeded team in the tournament,” Haugh said. “They got some threes, but we kind of decided no more.”

At least from a Florida perspective, the fun was about to begin.

The Gators scored the next nine points before the next media time out gave the Panthers an opportunity to pick themselves up and ask if someone got the license plate of the semi that ran then over. When play resumed, the Gators finished off the 18-0 run by scoring seven straight for a 33-15 lead. The Panthers put together a 4-0 mini-run but all that did was make the Gators play angry. The Gators scored 10 straight points highlighted by threes by Boogie Fland and Xavian Lee. Those two struggled to make shots in Nashville even when they were wide open. Not so Friday night. The game was already out of hand when they knocked down the 3-pointers, but those shots did have the effect of taking the lid off the basket.

In Nashville, the Gators were a combined 8-37 from 3-point range in the win over Kentucky and the loss to Vanderbilt. Friday night, the Gators shot 3-7 from three in the first half, 7-15 in the second. Going 10-22 from three was highly reminiscent of the way the Gators were shooting prior to Nashville.

All week since the loss to Vandy the talking heads nationally questioned if the Gators could make threes. Well, question asked and question answered.

The shooting was impressive but that was just one phase of the complete game the Gators used to turn Prairie View into an abuse victim. And it wasn't just making threes, either, because the Gators were 35-48 (72.9 percent) of their 2-point shots, among them 20 layups and four dunks. The Gators outscored Prairie View 64-10 in the paint, 38-0 in the first half when they made the inside a no-fly zone. On the backboards, the Gators dominated with a 54-20 advantage, 25 rebounds in the first half, 29 in the second. Nearly every Prairie View possession was one-shot-and-done.

After Prairie View opened up 5-7 from three, the next 14 3-point shots were SCUDs. It wasn't until there were 43.3 seconds left in the game before Prairie View found the range for a sixth 3-pointer. In between there were 14 consecutive misses, most of them contested. That three and an alley-oop dunk with 15 seconds left got a rise out of the Prairie View A&M fans. It had been a long time since they had anything positive happen.

Prairie View's inability to make shots had everything to do with Florida's defense. The Panthers' inability to get second chance points off the misses had everything to do with the Gators, who seemed to grab every available rebound and turn it into a fast break.

“When we are at our best, our identity is being a really gritty defensive team that cleans up the glass and gets out in transition,” Florida coach Todd Golden said after earning his seventh NCAA Tournament win as the Gators’ head coach. “When we do that we’re going to be tough to beat and we were able to do that tonight.”

The Gators were everything Golden wanted them to be which made them Prairie View's nightmare on Elm Street. The first half was bad for the Panthers but as bad as it was in the second half, it could have been worse except Golden emptied his bench with 7:30 left in the game. About 90 seconds earlier, the crowd erupted in chants of “We want Ollie (7-9 redshirt freshman Olivier Rioux)! We want Ollie!”

They had to wait awhile but they got what they asked for. Ollie got in the game with 1:54, grabbed two rebounds, handed out an assist and dunked with 1:11 left, thrilling the crowd as Prairie View players sidled up next to the big guy to see how far their heads rose about his waistline.

In between the end of the first half and the Rioux dunk, the Gators were on fire offensively. Whatever shots they wanted, they got whether in the paint or beyond the 3-point line. In the first four minutes of the second half, the Gators lit up Prairie View with three consecutive 3-pointers – two by Xavian Lee that sandwiched one by Boogie Fland. Inside or outside, it really didn’t matter. Golden played 14 players and all but walk-on Cooper Josefsberg scored.

Seven Gators scored in double figures led by Fland with 16. Haugh and Rueben Chinyelu each scored 14 while Condon scored 13, Urban Klavzar 11 and Handlogten and Lee 10 each. Chinyelu also grabbed 13 rebounds to set the single-season Florida school record for double-doubles with 19. Handlogten came up one rebound short of a double-double.

If there was a concern coming into the game with the Panthers it was ball security. The Gators spent two games in Nashville playing giveaway. Against Prairie View, there were only seven that the Panthers were able to convert into six points. In the first half of the Vanderbilt loss in Nashville, nine first half turnovers were turned into 20 Vandy points.

No such problem against Prairie View.

“I thought our biggest issue in Nashville was just ball security more than anything else, and I thought tonight we did a really good job of limiting our turnovers and playing together and just making the simple plays,” Golden said. “We call it hitting singles, taking what the defense gives us and living with that. Early on, I think we had a 38-0 paint advantage in the first half scoring-wise, so we weren't settling, we were getting good shots, and I thought we played with great purpose all night.”

Purpose showed in the Gators racking up a phenomenal 29 assists on 45 made baskets. Led by Haugh, who passed for seven assists, the ball moved and open Gators made shots. Condon and Lee had five assists each while Fland had four and Handlogten three. Great ball movement is why the Gators scored on 52 of 71 possessions (73.2 percent), averaging 1.606 points per possession, which is borderline ridiculous.

Scoring was no problem for the Gators. Once past the opening barrage of threes, the Gators clamped down defensively to hold the Panthers to 17-63 shooting overall (27 percent) and 6-22 from the 3-point line (27.3 percent). The Panthers scored on 24 of 69 possessions (34.8 percent).

As the NCAA Tournament progresses, the games will get tougher and scoring more difficult, but the Gators got hot again. Last year, when they heated up at tournament time there was no stopping the Gators. The way they played against Prairie View evokes memories of that championship run. To earn a second straight NCAA title, the Gators need to win five more games. The way they played against Prairie View, who's going to suggest they're incapable of repeating?

 FRIDAY’S NCAA TOURNAMENT FIRST ROUND SCORES

South/Tampa

1 FLORIDA (27-7) 114, Prairie View A&M (19-18) 55

9 Iowa (22-12) 67, 8 Clemson (24-11) 60

East/San Diego

4 Kansas (24-10) 68, 13 California Baptist (25-9) 60

5 St. John’s (29-6) 79, 12 Northern Iowa (23-13) 53

East/Philadelphia

2 UConn (30-5) 82, 15 Furman (22-13) 71

3 Virginia (30-5) 82, 14 Wright State (23-12) 73

7 UCLA (24-11) 75, 10 UCF (23-12) 71

Midwest/Philadelphia

6 Tennessee (23-11) 78, Miami OH (33-2) 56

Midwest/Tampa

4 Alabama (24-9) 90, 13 Hofstra (24-11) 70

5 Texas Tech (23-10) 91, 12 Akron (29-6) 71

Midwest/Saint Louis

2 Iowa State (28-7) 108, 15 Tennessee State (23-10) 74

7 Kentucky (22-13) 89, 10 Santa Clara (26-9) 84, OT

West/Saint Louis

2 Purdue (28-8) 104, 15 Queens (21-14) 71

7 Miami (25-8) 80, 10 Missouri (20-12) 66

West/San Diego

1 Arizona (33-2) 92, Long Island University (24-11) 58

9 Utah State (29-6) 86, 8 Villanova (24-9) 76

SATURDAY’S NCAA TOURNAMENT SECOND ROUND GAMES

East/Greenville (CBS)

5:15: 1 Duke (33-2) vs. 9 TCU (23-11)

East/Buffalo (CBS)

2:45: 3 Michigan State (26-7) vs. 6 Louisville (24-10)

South/Oklahoma City (TNT)

6:10: 2 Houston (29-6) vs. 10 Texas A&M (22-11)

8:45: 4 Nebraska (27-6) vs. 5 Vanderbilt (27-8)

South/Greenville (CBS)

7:50: 3 Illinois (25-8) vs. 11 VCU (28-7)

Midwest/Buffalo (CBS)

12:10: 1 Michigan (32-3) vs. 9 Saint Louis (30-5)

West/Portland (truTV)

7:10: 3 Gonzaga (31-3) vs. 11 Texas (20-14)

9:45: 4 Arkansas (27-8) vs. 12 High Point (31-4)

SUNDAY’S NCAA TOURNAMENT SECOND ROUND GAMES

South/Tampa (TBS)

7:10 1 FLORIDA (27-7) vs. 9 Iowa (22-12)

Midwest/Tampa (TBS)

9:45: 4 Alabama (24-9) vs. 5 Texas Tech (23-10)

Midwest/Saint Louis

 2 Iowa State (28-7) vs. 7 Kentucky (22-13)

West/Saint Louis (CBS)

12:10 2 Purdue (28-8) vs. 7 Miami (26-8)

East/San Diego (CBS)

5:15: 4 Kansas (24-10) vs. 5 St. John’s (29-6)

East/Philadelphia (TNT)

6:10: 3 Virginia (30-5) vs. 6 Tennessee (23-11)

8:45: 2 UConn (30-5) vs 7 UCLA (24-11)

West/San Diego (truTV)

7:50: 1 Arizona (33-2) vs. 9 Utah State (29-6)