Prairie View A&M coach Byron Smith Credit: CBS, TNT Sports
By Matt Yoder on

The 16th seeded Prairie View A&M Panthers started exceptionally well against the top seed Florida Gators in their first round NCAA Tournament matchup.

After just over six minutes of play, somehow the Panthers and Gators were tied at 15-15. Unfortunately, that was as good as it would get for Prairie View A&M as Florida woke up and went on a historic run. By the end of the under 8 media timeout, the Gators had started an 18-0 run to race out to a 33-15 lead.

It was also when Prairie View coach Byron Smith was scheduled to do his in-game interview with CBS and TNT Sports sideline reporter A.J. Ross. And much like we saw with Villanova coach Kevin Willard on Friday, this wasn’t your typical interview. However, instead of threatening to fire his entire staff for their misdeeds, Smith went with a vastly different approach.

He called upon divine intervention to help his team find a way to compete with the Florida onslaught.

“We need some help from the Lord. They’re very good. They’re very good. We just got to keep defending,” Smith said.

Unfortunately for Smith and Prairie View A&M, there was no salvation from the tidal wave of points that was only just beginning.

By halftime, Florida had extended their 18-0 run to a 45-6 surge to end the first half and led 60-21 at the intermission. The endless barrage continued in the second half. Instead of letting their foot off the gas, the Gators continued to dominate by winning the second stanza by 20 points for a 114-55 final. 7’9″ big man Olivier Rioux even got into the action in just his 11th game of the season, scoring a basket.

It was the second highest margin of victory in the history of the NCAA Tournament and the largest since 1963. Friday’s blowout was only surpassed by Loyola defeating Tennessee Tech 111-42 just 63 years ago. So maybe the miracle for Byron Smith was that his Prairie View A&M team at least didn’t get beat that badly.

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