The Pittsburgh Panthers play the Florida Gators on Saturday in the 2014 NCAA Tournament round of 32. Tipoff is at 12:15 p.m. ET on CBS. Listen to the live radio broadcast or watch the live stream with the links offered below.
First-seeded Florida advanced on Thursday against Albany, but the 67-55 win was too close for comfort. 16th-seeded Albany challenged Florida's defense throughout the game, and the Gators ultimately turned in a performance that was good enough to win but not a good showing from a top-ranked team.
"In this tournament, you have to be aware that every team is fighting for their life, and the goal is just to survive," Gators center Patric Young told the Associated Press. "Seeding doesn't matter when it comes down to between the lines. As you see, a 14 can beat a 3. Fortunately a 16 has never beat a 1, and we were able to keep that going.
"But moving forward ... we have to make sure we do whatever it takes just to survive."
Moving forward, the team hopes that will be their only bad game in the tournament.
"I think we'll be ready," Gators guard Scottie Wilbekin said. "I think we've got this game out of our system and we're ready to move forward and ready to play like we know we can."
Ninth-seeded Pittsburgh, meanwhile, is coming off a 77-48 rout of Colorado. Whether the Panthers' blowout win was an aberration will be determined on Saturday against the Gators.
Pittsburgh, though, is confident they're getting hot when it matters most.
"We're playing good basketball right now," forward Lamar Patterson said. "We'll know if we're playing our best basketball on Saturday. ... Right now is the perfect time to be making strides toward the best you can possibly be, and I feel like that's what we're doing as a team right now."
Listen to the live radio broadcast HERE, or watch the live stream HERE.
