DAYTON, Ohio — A year ago, Prairie View A&M had bottomed out, winning only five games, its fewest under coach Byron Smith.

At the same time, Dontae Horne was “down and depressed,” his career having stalled after stops at Texas State and Georgia Southern. He didn’t have many options in the portal because of concerns about his grades.

Fast-forward to Wednesday night, as Smith and Horne sat beside each other, celebrating Prairie View A&M’s first NCAA tournament win, a 67-55 triumph against Lehigh in the First Four at UD Arena. Behind 25 points, seven rebounds and four steals from Horne, the No. 16 seed Panthers advanced to face No. 1 seed Florida in a first-round South region matchup Friday in Tampa.

“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.”

Smith pushed forward behind a reshaped roster, which included key transfers in Horne, Cory Wells (Utah Valley), Tai’Reon Joseph (UTSA) and Lance Williams (Xavier-Louisiana). The new group engineered a historic turnaround, winning seven straight before the First Four and then pulling away Wednesday.

According to ESPN Research, Prairie View A&M became just the third team to win an NCAA tournament game following a season of five wins or fewer since the tournament expanded to 64 in 1985. The previous two, Iowa State and Fairleigh Dickinson, both won multiple games, including FDU’s upset of No. 1 seed Purdue in 2023 after prevailing at the First Four.

“We felt really good about the kids that we brought in, that they kind of had a chip on their shoulder,” Smith said. “When you bring people in that have been doubted, and if they come together, they work together, great things can happen.”

Horne, who had middling numbers at his first two college stops, had to recruit his way onto the Prairie View A&M roster. According to Smith, he asked for no compensation, only a chance.

The 6-foot-4 guard earned first-team All-SWAC honors, averaging 20.2 points, and continued his brilliance Wednesday.

“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.”

Horne and Wells (19 points) provided the offense, but Prairie View A&M won primarily because of its defense. The Panthers smothered Lehigh guard Nasir Whitlock, the first-team All-Patriot league selection and league tournament MVP, holding him to five points, 16 below his average. Whitlock went scoreless on eight field goal attempts in the first half and finished 2-of-15 shots for the game.

Horne and Wells credited Williams, whom Horne called “our pitbull,” for repeatedly disrupting Whitlock.

“He’s the engine that makes us run, him and Corey Dunning, defensively,” Wells said. “We go as they go. So he came out, set the tone, we followed his lead.”

Prairie View A&M had 12 steals and 18 points off turnovers. After forcing a shot clock violation with 6:23 left and the Panthers up nine, Horne nodded at the crowd. Lehigh never made a serious push in the closing minutes.

“We were just trying to disrupt them,” Horne said. “We knew we had the quickness and athleticism.”

Prairie View A&M had dropped its two previous NCAA tournament appearances, most recently in 2019 at the First Four against Fairleigh Dickinson. After a quick turnaround Wednesday, the Panthers will take on the defending national champions.

“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.”