FORT WORTH—East Carolina hasn't won a basketball game in five weeks, and UCF hasn't lost in almost a month. The Knights made certain both streaks continued Thursday night in the 2021 American Athletic Conference Championship first round at Dickies Arena.
The Knights used a 10-0 run in the game's first five minutes and hit nine of their first 13 shots--and that set the tone for UCF's final 72-62 margin.
UCF built a 40-27 lead early in the second half, survived a 7-0 East Carolina run, then went on a 10-2 run of its own to create a 54-40 advantage and later lead by as many as 16 points.
Senior Darius Perry paced the Knights with 15 points. Senior Avery Diggs connected on his first five shots on his way to a season-high and career-high-tying 12 points off the bench. Sophomore Darin Green Jr. also had a dozen points, and senior Brandon Mahan had 10. Sophomore Dre Fuller Jr. paced his team with seven rebounds.
"I thought our guys played a really good game for 40 minutes, one of the best we've played all season in terms of how we executed at both ends of the floor," said UCF head coach Johnny Dawkins.
"When you get a team down, how do you keep 'em down? We've been working on that this season, and it was good to see it come together today. That's the maturity we're looking for in our team."
Sixth-seeded UCF prevailed in a rematch of its last regular-season game played exactly a week ago (the Knights won 64-60 in that one and also defeated the Pirates 71-64 Jan. 27 in Orlando).
UCF, 11-11 overall and 8-10 in American Athletic Conference play, boasts a five-game win streak. The Knights have not been defeated since a Feb.14 road loss at Cincinnati. UCF won its AAC tournament opener for the third time in four years, in the process fighting back to the .500 mark for the first time since early January.
Eleventh-seeded ECU (8-11, 2-10) saw its season end with a five-game losing streak. The Pirates last won Feb. 3 versus Houston and went 1-10 to end their campaign after starting the year 7-1. The only East Carolina lead of the night came at 2-0.
Pirate junior forward Jayden Gardner, who led the AAC in scoring at 18.3 points per game, had only four in the first half and finished with 17. Over one nine-minute second-half stretch he scored nine points in a row for his team.
The Knights led by as many as 11 points in the first half, led by 11 by Perry. UCF knocked down five three-pointers in the opening 20 minutes—compared to zero for East Carolina.
The UCF victory marked its 12th straight series win against the Pirates—with the last East Carolina triumph over the Knights coming in overtime in the 2015 AAC Championship.
UCF returns to action Friday night, meeting number-three seed Memphis in the quarterfinal round (10 p.m. EST on ESPNU). The Knights lost twice to the Tigers during the regular season (96-69 Feb. 1 and 75-61 two nights later, both in Memphis).
