Prairie View A&M arrived in the First Four with the kind of resume people love to dismiss in March: a SWAC champion from a program that had never won an NCAA tournament game, matched with a Patriot League champion that has lived on the right side of March history before.

By the end of Wednesday night at UD Arena, Prairie View owned the only result that matters, pulling away in the second half for a 67-55 win over Lehigh and capturing the school’s first NCAA tournament victory.

The No. 16 seed Panthers now advance to face No. 1 seed Florida in a South Region first round game Friday in Tampa, a quick turnaround that sends Prairie View from “nice story” to “welcome to the defending champs” with little time to catch its breath.

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The win was driven by senior guard Dontae Horne, who finished with 25 points, seven rebounds, and four steals. Cory Wells added 19 points and Lehigh spent the night trying to solve a defense that never let its best player get comfortable.

Prairie View’s turnaround is the part that makes the night stand out beyond one game. A year ago, the Panthers won only five games, the fewest under coach Byron Smith. Smith described the grind of trying to climb out of seasons like that, without pretending every program gets to live at the top of the poll forever. “Losing sucks,” Smith said. “Everything is better when you win, just life is better. Everybody would like to be Coach [Nick] Saban — seven, eight national championships and be No. 1 preseason and in the final poll every year — but that’s just not realistic. When you have seasons like we did the last two years, it really tests you as a coach and how much you really want to be doing this thing.”

Horne’s route to this moment was not a straight line either. His career had stopped and restarted through multiple schools, and he ended up at Prairie View after recruiting his way onto the roster. Smith said Horne asked for no compensation, only a chance to play. Horne credited the staff for betting on him. “To have a school that had faith in me means a lot to me,” Horne said, “because if they didn’t have to have faith in me, I wouldn’t be the player I am right now, and I wouldn’t be here today.”

The game itself was about adjustments and pressure. Prairie View trailed by two at halftime, then outscored Lehigh 40-26 in the second half, turning a close game into a controlled finish.

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Defense was the separator. Prairie View smothered Lehigh guard Nasir Whitlock, the first team All Patriot League selection and tournament MVP, holding him to five points on 2 of 15 shooting. He went scoreless on eight field goal attempts in the first half. Prairie View finished with 12 steals and scored 18 points off turnovers, repeatedly disrupting Lehigh’s rhythm and forcing late clock possessions that didn’t produce clean looks.

Lehigh still got a big night from Hank Alvey, who posted 23 points and a career high 15 rebounds, but the Mountain Hawks could not get enough support from their lead scorer to keep pace. Prairie View’s key stretch included 10 straight points from Horne as the Panthers built separation and then kept answering when Lehigh tried to push back.

The win also landed in a small historical bucket. Prairie View became only the third team since the NCAA tournament expanded to 64 in 1985 to win an NCAA tournament game after a season of five wins or fewer, joining Iowa State and Fairleigh Dickinson.

Now comes Florida. Smith framed the next matchup as a test that fits the moment. “They’ve got probably about four or five guys that are going to be playing on ESPN here in about nine months,” Smith said. “But in life, no test, no testimony, right? We’re going to be tested going into the game in Tampa, but we look forward to it.”

Prairie View got the breakthrough in Dayton. The reward is a date with the top seed and the kind of national stage that does not care how you arrived, only whether you can stay.

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