Dec. 5, 2009
By John Denton
UCFAthletics.com
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When UCF's women's basketball team hosts the University of Washington on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the UCF Arena, it will be the first ever Pac-10 school that the Knights have ever faced.
UCF is hoping the result is the same as when it faces teams from other conferences.
Dating back to last season when UCF closed the year as one of the hottest teams in all of women's college basketball, UCF has won nine consecutive home games. Eight of those games came last year and UCF (2-1) won its home-opener this season by smashing Bethune-Cookman 80-46.
UCF coach Joi Williams said the success at home is no accident. The Knights have defended better at home and she has preached to her team that it is a must to play its best basketball in the confines of UCF Arena.
``We've talked about how we must take care of our business at home,'' said Williams, the architect of UCF's tremendous turnaround last season. ``It's critical to win at home and go out on the road and steal as many as possible. But at home, we want to do our best to make UCF Arena a really tough place to play.''
It was undoubtedly a tough place for Conference USA foes to play last season as the Knights went 8-0 in Orlando. The strong run at home allowed UCF to dig out of a 2-11 start last season and rally with a furious closing kick.
UCF got it all together in time to win the Conference USA tournament, a first for the basketball program. That put the Knights in the NCAA tournament where they narrowly lost to No. 2 North Carolina.
Williams sees Sunday's game against Washington and future home contests against Alabama (Dec. 14), Florida State (Dec. 16) and Notre Dame (Dec. 29) as difficult non-conference games that will show the Knights how far along they are. Williams feels like a difficult early-season schedule last season helped prepare the Knights for C-USA play, and they ultimately breezed through conference play.
``These games against the schools from the BCS conference will tell us how we measure up,'' Williams said. ``We talk about the Conference USA making strides, but we've got to win our share of these non-conference games against the quality opponents. We didn't do that against a ranked team in Middle Tennessee State (in the season-opener). But we have to find a way to win some of these games.
``A lot of teams schedule games so that they head into conference play with one or no losses, but the way we had success at Florida and Murray State when I was coaching there before was to play the tough teams and build the program. And then when you make the NCAA tournament like we did last season and you have to face those tough teams, there's no fear factor there.''
UCF has put fear into teams at home with its rugged defense. In those nine consecutive home victories at UCF Arena, the Knights have held foes to a combined 39.6 percent shooting. Also, they have forced 59 more turnovers than they have committed.
Williams has shown those numbers to her team and convinced the Knights that the path to more success begins with defense. Forward Emma Cannon is an elite post defender and one of the nation's top rebounders, while guards Aisha Patrick and Angelica Mealing are ace defenders on the wing.
``After losing the first game (to MTSU) we kind of went back to the drawing board and really stressed the fundamentals again,'' Williams said. ``We went back and built our defense from the ground up. The reason we've had success in the past is by holding teams to a low percentage shooting the ball. We know we've got to get back to that style of play.''
John Denton's Knights Insider appears several times per week on UCFAthletics.com. E-mail John at jdenton@athletics.ucf.edu.