Feb. 23, 2011
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By John Denton
UCFAthletics.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFAthletics.com) - Defense, of course, is the backbone of any successful college basketball team. But it never hurts to score a few points and make big some shots along the way to widen the margin of error.
UCF's Conference USA-leading defense was on display earlier in the week when the Knights shocked a 20-win UTEP squad, beating the Miners 74-68 in El Paso. But what helped UCF most was its ability to snap out of a mini-offensive funk and get scoring production from up and down its roster.
Seven Knights scored as many as seven points. UCF shot an incredible 66.7 percent in the first half, including making all six of its 3-point shots, and connected on almost 48 percent overall for the game. Add it all up and it provided UCF with one of its most important and thrilling victories of the season.
``We finally made some shots,'' UCF coach Donnie Jones said Tuesday. ``In some of the games that we've lost, we've been right there, but we just couldn't make shots and get over the hump. We lead the conference in defensive field goal percentage, but our inability to score at times has led us to lose some close games. But I tell you what, the guys have continued to take coaching and they've worked really hard. We put ourselves in position to get better and that's what we've done.''
At 17-9 overall and 4-9 in Conference USA play, UCF could very well be in the hunt for a postseason berth coming down the stretch of the regular season. The Knights, who opened the season with 14 consecutive wins and a historic rise into the national rankings, seem to be getting hot at the right time with three wins in the last four games.
The Knights next host Southern Miss on Saturday at UCF Arena. The Golden Eagles (21-6 overall) are locked in a three-way tie atop C-USA with Memphis (9-4) and UAB (9-4). UCF's defeat of UTEP (8-4), the Miners first loss in 15 home games, knocked them out of the league lead.
UCF closes the regular season with a home game against SMU (March 2) and then on the road in Marshall (March 5). Jones has continued to stress to his team that despite UCF's midseason lull that there is plenty to play for down the stretch.
``We have three more games in the regular season - two of them at home - and I see them as being very vital to us because we're fighting for a spot in the postseason,'' Jones said. ``I have great respect for the UTEP program, and for us to go out there with it being our third game in six days and play like we did shows a great deal of toughness in our kids. It shows what we're capable of doing.''
UCF's defense in conference games had been plenty good, holding teams to 43 percent shooting and at 67.9 points a game. But offensively, the Knights have struggled to score for long stretches. In 13 C-USA games, UCF has made just 40.6 percent of its shots and 29.1 percent of its 3-point tries while averaging only 63.5 points a game.
But offense wasn't a problem at UTEP, where the Knights ground out a 23-8 run in the first half and surged to a 19-point lead. And UCF's 74 points were the most it had scored since the 84 it put up on Dec. 18 in a defeat of Miami.
Jones credits the Knights' adjustment to several injuries and position switches to the offense finally clicking. Mid-season maladies to Marcus Jordan, A.J. Rompza, David Diakite and Tom Herzog forced the Knights to shuffle several player positions and alter their rotation.
But there were no problems whatsoever in El Paso. The hope is that the same will be true when the Knights return to West Texas on March 9 for the Conference USA tournament.
``When teams made runs at us before we had a tough time coming back from it because we had trouble scoring the ball,'' Jones said. ``We haven't had many big leads to hold like the one we had on Monday at UTEP. So it was nice to play well offensively and now we just have to keep it up.''
John Denton's Knights Insider appears on UCFAthletics.com several times a week. E-mail John at jdenton@athletics.ucf.edu.