Feb. 26, 2014
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By Andy Seeley
UCFKnights.com
ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) - The three-pointers started falling. Tristan Spurlock rocked a monster dunk. Momentum shifted. The UCF men's basketball team, which was down by 15 midway through the second half, rode that momentum to a 67-65 comeback victory over Rutgers Wednesday night at CFE Arena.
Rutgers (10-18, 4-11 American Athletic Conference) opened its biggest lead of the game with 9:30 left when Greg Lewis scored on a layup to make it 54-39. But 22 seconds later, UCF (11-15, 3-12) got a three-pointer from Kasey Wilson. Spurlock buried another one a minute later. Staphon Blair hit a pair of free throws and Spurlock knocked down another triple. In a span of 3:26, the Knights had cut a 15-point lead to four, 54-50.
Rutgers tried to regain the momentum. The Scarlet Knights pushed out to a 59-51 edge with 4:38. But UCF "had enough," Spurlock said. He showed that resolve with just over four minutes left on a highlight-reel dunk that brought nearly 5,000 people in CFE Arena to their feet. That dunk sparked the Knights' final push.
"My teammates are always on me, they see some of the dunking I do in practice," Spurlock said. "They tell me to just drive it, get low. Especially Zeke (Sykes), `Get low and drive it, then jump, nobody is going to jump with you.' They kept telling me to keep attacking."
UCF continued the attack and trimmed its deficit to one point, 63-62, on an Isaiah Sykes layup with just more than a minute remaining. Spurlock forced a turnover on the sideline on Rutgers' next possession and Sykes once again got into the lane. His layup with 42 seconds left put the Knights on top for the first time since the 14:13 mark of the first half.
A Rutgers miss and a big rebound from Wilson led to a pair of Calvin Newell free throws, putting UCF on top 66-63 with 20 seconds remaining. J.J. Moore missed a three-pointer at the other end, Spurlock secured the rebound and hit one of two free throws with nine seconds remaining to ice the victory.
"Everybody on the team contributed down the stretch," Sykes said. "It showed in the effort and the win."
Coming off a 21-point effort Saturday at Houston, Spurlock matched his career-high with 23 points in the victory over Rutgers. UCF needed every one of them with leading scorer Sykes battling foul trouble most of the night. Sykes still scored 14 and grabbed a team-high seven rebounds, but played just 21 minutes. Wilson also reached double digits for the Knights, scoring 11. Rutgers was paced by Myles Mack, who scored 19 points.
"We obviously had a foul problem with Sykes, which always throws our team off because we are used to him being in there. He's our emotional leader," UCF head coach Donnie Jones said. "It was a good effort by our team. I'm really proud of how we competed when we were down."
UCF trailed 35-26 at intermission. Rutgers shot a blistering 53.3 percent from the field in the first half, leading to their nine-point halftime edge.
The Knights are back in action again Saturday afternoon at SMU.