KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Riding the momentum from their two-point road win, the UCF men’s basketball team is set for its first taste of the Phillips 66 Big 12 Conference Championship. The 12th-seeded Knights will square off with against 13-th seeded Oklahoma State Tuesday afternoon at 12:30 p.m. ET.
The Black and Gold got a legendary performance from Darius Johnson, a game that saw him post a career-high 33 points and nine rebounds, propelling UCF to the 79-77 win. He also tied a career-high five made three-pointers. As a team, UCF shot 54% in the second half, finishing the evening just a hair under 50% from the field for the contest. The game was a grind, as there were a 17 lead changes and 14 ties. A handful of timely plays from Johnson and Jaylin Sellers down the stretch helped lift the Knights to victory in the final two minutes, tallying UCF’s first win in 15 tries this season when trailing with 120 seconds remaining.
UCF finished the conference slate by going 7-5 against teams that were already in the Big 12 prior to the Knight’s arrival. They’ll face a team they’ve already beat this season, playing the Cowboys for the second time in two weeks. The Black and Gold trailed by as many as 12 in the contest at Oklahoma State back on Feb. 28, but were able to trim the deficit to just four by halftime. Timely three-point shooting helped boost the Knights down the stretch to prevail on the road. UCF is 2-0 all-time against Oklahoma State, with the other win coming in Nassau, Bahamas at the Baha Mar Hoops Bahamas Championship where the Knights topped the Cowboys 60-56 in overtime. UCF had to erase a 17-point deficit in that contest.
The Black and Gold have won their first game of a conference tournament for the last three seasons in the American Athletic Conference.