ORLANDO, Fla. (UCFKnights.com) – The American Athletic Conference announced schedule pairings for the 2019-20 season on Tuesday. The Knights welcome six-time reigning conference champion UConn for the fourth consecutive year, as well as in-state rival South Florida for the third straight season, to Addition Financial Arena.
The league's 12 members will play a 16-game schedule. Each team will play five of its 11 opponents twice, and six opponents once each – three at home and three away.
In the single-game pairings for 2019-20, UCF will host ECU, SMU and Wichita State, and will face Houston, Tulane and Tulsa on the road. In addition to the Huskies and the Bulls, the Knights will play Cincinnati, Memphis and Temple both at home and on the road.
The complete 2019-20 women's basketball regular season schedule with dates and times will be announced in the fall.
The 2020 American Women's Basketball Championship will once again be played at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., from March 6-9.
The Knights finished the 2018-19 campaign with a 26-7 record, setting a program record for wins in a season. A 13-3 mark in The American gave UCF its highest finish in the conference for the third consecutive season, and the Knights posted a runner-up finish as the second seed at The American Championship.
Head coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson has led UCF to the postseason in each of her three seasons at the helm – beginning with back-to-back WNIT bids and a berth in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. Since taking over, Coach “ABE” has guided UCF to three-consecutive 20-win campaigns for the first time in the program’s Division I era. In December, she became the fastest UCF head coach to reach 50 Division I wins and currently ranks fourth among the Knights’ all-time coaches with a 69-30 record.
Headlining the returners for the 2019-20 campaign is rising senior Kay Kay Wright. A first team all-conference selection and invitee to the 2019 U.S. Pan American Games team trials, Wright led UCF in scoring, steals and assists last season. Diamond Battles, Masseny Kaba, Sianni Martin and Brittney Smith join Wright among the returnees, while Jaylen Williams will be eligible after sitting out last season due to NCAA transfer rules.