ORLANDO – The UCF men's basketball team led by three points at halftime but couldn't slow the Bearcats down in the second half, ultimately falling 68-54 to visiting Cincinnati Saturday afternoon at Addition Financial Arena.
"We had opportunities," UCF head coach Johnny Dawkins said. "In the second half we went through a little bit of a drought for about eight minutes. We can't have that in games like this. Our offense has to complement our defense and tonight it really didn't."
The defense gave up just 26 points and 41.7 percent shooting to the Bearcats in the first half, but the offense only mustered 29 points of its own.
The Knights (9-7, 0-4) couldn't take advantage of the lead and allowed Cincinnati (10-6, 3-1) to get going offensively in the final 20 minutes.
Cincinnati shot 56.7 percent in the second half, scoring 42 points en route to the 14-point victory. Keith Williams led the way with 16 points, Tre Scott had 14 points and 11 rebounds, and Chris Vogt added 13 points for the Bearcats.
It was Collin Smith leading the UCF offense, finishing with 19 points and nine rebounds. Brandon Mahan added 13 and Ceasar DeJesus chipped in with 12 in the defeat.
The Knights turned the ball over 14 times, which led to 24 points off of turnovers for Cincinnati. UCF, meanwhile, was only able to turn the Bearcats' 13 turnovers into eight points.
"It's tough on all of us," Dawkins said of the loss. "The only way you can improve on it is get a little better each day, learn from the mistakes of the game before, tweak that, make the adjustments and keep moving forward and then you overcome."
The Knights, now having lost five in a row for the first time under Dawkins, will regroup and head back on the road. UCF plays at Tulane Jan. 14. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. with coverage on ESPN3 and FM 96.9 The Game.
"Our guys are disappointed," Dawkins concluded. "(Our) guys are a little hurt. We have to keep fighting. We have to understand that it takes a game or two to get some rhythm and change your trajectory. The only place we can go is up. We have to look at it that way. We have to find a way to put a really good 40 minutes together and then build off of that."
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