UCF head men’s coach Johnny Dawkins has built a particularly glossy college basketball playing and coaching catalogue—most recently including 2023 induction into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame and selection of a UCF player in the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft.
Dawkins’ resume showcases:
- 16 seasons as a major-college head coach (the last eight at UCF), including nine postseason berths and a pair of National Invitation Tournament titles
- Extensive player development, highlighted by Taylor Hendricks’ selection in the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft after only a single season at UCF
- 10 additional previous seasons of experience as an assistant coach at Duke, including NCAA Championship appearances every year, an NCAA title in 2001 and seven Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament crowns
- A nine-year NBA career that included a career double-figure scoring average
- A collegiate playing career at Duke that featured national player of the year recognition as a senior and ended his career as the Blue Devils’ all-time leading scorer, later culminating with his 2023 National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame selection
In eight seasons at UCF, Dawkins has led the program to unprecedented heights, in the only eight-year stretch with four or more postseason appearances during the Division I era. He led the Knights to their first NCAA Championship victory in 2019. He’s also responsible for producing UCF’s first lottery pick after Taylor Hendricks was selected by the Utah Jazz with the ninth overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. In the deepest, most challenging league in college basketball, Dawkins led the Knights to seven victories in their inaugural season as members of the Big 12 Conference in 2023-24, earning a program record three ranked wins during the campaign.
Dawkins boasts eight wins over ranked opponents in his time at the helm of the Knights, accounting for 80% of the team’s wins over Associated Press top-25 teams in the program’s history. UCF made a statement in its inaugural home Big 12 game on Jan. 10, 2024, beating No. 3 Kansas by five after trailing by 16 at one point during the contest. The Knights went on to earn additional ranked wins over No. 23 Oklahoma and No. 23 Texas Tech during the inaugural Big 12 slate, joining the 2018-19 season as the only other campaign with multiple wins over ranked opponents in a single season.
The Knights also earned a host of other impressive wins against top-25 foes, beating 15th-ranked Florida State in Tallahassee in 2020, the program’s first victory over the Seminoles. The Knights recorded consecutive victories over No. 6 Houston and No. 19 Cincinnati during the 2018-19 regular-season run to the NCAA Championship, solidifying themselves in the field of 68. UCF defeated No. 24 Alabama in December 2017, after earning the first ranked win under Dawkins on Feb. 26, 2017, beating No. 15 Cincinnati 53-49. UCF cracked the AP poll on Mar. 4, 2019, for the first time since 2011, earning a ranking of 25th late in the regular season. It was the latest into a season that the Knights had been ranked. The home finale against Cincinnati in 2019 marked the first matchup of ranked teams at Addition Financial Arena.
Dawkins was named UCF’s seventh head men’s basketball coach on Mar. 23, 2016.
The 2019 NCAA Championship Run
The 2018-19 season was one to remember for Dawkins and the Knights, as he guided UCF to a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Championship, its highest seed in five all-time NCAA Championship appearances, and defeated eighth-seeded VCU 73-58 in first-round action.
UCF then came inches away from upsetting top overall seed Duke in the second round, ultimately falling 77-76 to fellow Hall of Famer and his former college coach Mike Krzyzewski, Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett as BJ Taylor’s floater rimmed out and Aubrey Dawkins’ tip-in barely missed at the buzzer.
The Knights were stellar down the stretch to secure their at-large NCAA Championship berth, winning on the road at No. 6/8 Houston to snap the Cougars’ 33-game home win streak and topping No. 19/20 Cincinnati in Orlando. It marked the first time UCF had earned multiple victories over ranked opponents in the same season, and the Knights did it in back-to-back games.
Dawkins led UCF back to the NCAA Championship for the first time since 2005, and the first time as an at-large selection (with the previous four NCAA Championships as champions of the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament in 1994, 1996, 2004 and 2005). He helped three individuals earn all-conference accolades from the American Athletic Conference in 2018-19, as UCF led the league with three honorees. BJ Taylor became the first Knight to earn first-team AAC honors, while Aubrey Dawkins was named second team and Tacko Fall added third-team honors. It marked just the second time that the Knights put multiple student-athletes on the AAC all-conference teams and the ninth time in the program's Division I history that multiple Knights earned all-conference honors in the same season (dating back to the 1993-94 season). With two players on the three all-conference teams, only Houston had more players earn all-conference honors.
Following the end of the 2018-19 regular season, Dawkins was named a finalist for the Skip Prosser Man of the Year Award and the Ben Jobe National Coach of the Year Award.
UCF finished the year 24-9, tied for the fourth most wins in a season in program history. The Knights’ 23 regular-season wins marked a record in UCF’s Division I era. The team went 13-5 in AAC play, the team’s most league wins since joining that conference, and earned the No. 4 seed in the conference tournament for the second time in three seasons.