ORLANDO – Basketball season is back, and the Knights will hit the court for official game action on Wednesday, Nov. 10 at 7:00 p.m. as UCF welcomes Robert Morris to Addition Financial Arena in Orlando.
The game will be streamed live on ESPN+ and Marc Daniels will be on the call on FM 96.9 The Game.
The Knights enter year six under head coach Johnny Dawkins, who led his squad to an 11-12 record in 2020-21, including an 8-10 record in AAC play. The Knights made it to the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament before falling to Memphis.
The Knights are among the leaders in the country with 97 percent of their points scored and 96 percent of their minutes played from 2020-21 returning for the upcoming season. Key returners suiting up for the black and gold again this season include Darius Perry, Brandon Mahan, Isaiah Adams, Darin Green Jr., Dre Fuller Jr., C.J. Walker, Jamille Reynolds and Sean Mobley.
The Knights also added to their already solid unit as Dawkins brought in 6-foot-11 UNLV transfer Cheickh Mbacke Diong and JUCO transfer Tyem Freeman as well as a trio of freshmen in Darius Johnson, P.J. Edwards and Ed'Xavier Rhodes.
On the other side of the ball, Robert Morris is in its 12th season under head coach Andrew Toole, who has a 192-169 overall record with the Colonials. Toole led his squad to a 4-15 overall record in 2020-21, including a 3-12 mark against Horizon League opponents. Wednesday will mark the first matchup between Robert Morris and UCF.
Game Information
Date: Monday, Nov. 10
Time: 7 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN+
Radio: FM 96.9 The Game
DAWKINS ERA AT UCF
- Johnny Dawkins has made an immedate impact as head coach for the UCF men's basketball team, winning 94 games in five years at the helm.
- Dawkins is 94-60 since starting with the Knights in 2016, a win percentage of .610, the second best of any UCF coach (Torchy Clark, .754 from 1969-83).
- He has the third most wins over any UCF coach, trailing Clark's 274 and Kirk Speraw's 247 from 1993-2010.
- Dawkins has led UCF to its first NIT Final Four (2017), first at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament (2019) and first NCAA Tournament win (2019).
- Prior to Dawkins' arrival at UCF, the program had won three games against ranked opponents from 1984-2016. Since Dawkins has taken over, the Knights have won five games against ranked opponents.
- UCF had never won two games against ranked teams in a single season, and the Knights did it in a span of five days, taking down no. 6 Houston and no. 19 Cincinnati late in the 2018-19 season.
- UCF is now 8-49 all-time against ranked opponents, but 5-15 against ranked teams under Dawkins.
WHO IS BACK?
- The Knights are among the leaders in the country with 97 percent of their points scored and 96 percent of their minutes played from the 2020-21 season returning for the upcoming season.
- Key returners suiting up for the black and gold again this season include Darius Perry, Brandon Mahan, Isaiah Adams, Darin Green Jr., Dre Fuller Jr., C.J. Walker, Jamille Reynolds and Sean Mobley.
- Each one of those players saw over 250 minutes of action for UCF last season.
WHO IS NEW?
- Immediately eligible transfer Cheickh Mbacke Diong is a redshirt senior forward who comes to UCF from UNLV, where he served as a team captain last season. Last season with the Rebels, the 6-foot-11 Diong averaged 8.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, while shooting 60.7 percent from the field. He also had 27 blocks, 33 steals and 20 assists in 2020-21.
- Diong is a native of Dakar, Senegal - the home of Tacko Fall and assistant coach Mamadou N'Diaye.
- Next, there are a pair of true freshman guards in Darius Johnson and P.J. Edwards. Johnson, the son of UCF Men's Basketball Director of Player Development Kelvin Johnson, was a four-star recruit by both Rivals and ESPN out of Episcopal High School in Virginia.
- Edwards is a 6-foot-4 combo guard originally out of Springfield, Illinois. He was rated as a three-star recruit by Rivals and was ranked as high as the 17th-best player out of the state of North Carolina when head coach Johnny Dawkins signed him at the beginning of 2021.
- A 6-foot-9 forward out of Dallas, Texas, Ed'Xavier Rhodes is a 6-foot-9 forward who was rated as a three-star recruit by Rivals and was ranked as one of the top power forwards in the class when head coach Johnny Dawkins signed him back in April 2021. He averaged 20 points, nine rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game last season at Skyline High School in Dallas.
- Finally, JUCO transfer Tyem Freeman was named a National Junior College Association of America first-team All-American as a freshman at Indian Hills Community College in 2020-21. The 6-foot-6 guard was the only freshman to earn the accolade as he averaged 18.1 points per game and 7.3 rebounds per contest while shooting 52.2 percent from the field. He joins the Knights as a sophomore, but technically has four years of eligibility remaining due to the COVID-19 extra year.
CHALLENGING NON-CONFERENCE SLATE
- Highlighted by home games against Michigan and Oklahoma, as well as matchups against Florida State, Miami, and Auburn away from home, UCF will play 11 non-conference games in total to open the year.
- Three of the Knights' 11 non-conference opponents are ranked in the AP Top 25 preseason poll in No. 6 Michigan, No. 20 Florida State and No. 22 Auburn.
- The Knights defeated then No. 15 Florida State at their place, 86-74, last season and took down Auburn, 63-55, to open the 2020-21 season at home.
- Home games at Addition Financial Arena will return to 100% capacity for the 2021-22 season.
2020-21 LATE BLOOMERS
- UCF won five consecutive games and seven of its last nine toward the end of the 2020-21 season before falling in the American Athletic Conference Championship quarterfinals to Memphis.
- The Knights' offense was scoring 74.8 points per game during that streak - 7.3 more points per game than their season average (67.5).
- UCF was shooting 48.5 percent from the floor and 38.1 percent from 3-point range, compared to season averages of 43.3 percent and 35.9 percent, respectively.
- Even the free throw shooting was better, hitting at 77.5 percent during the last five games, compared to 73.6 percent on the season.
- The Knights also averaged 15.4 assists per game during that late run, as compared to their season average of 12.3 per contest.
- UCF earned its fourth American Athletic Conference Tournament victory on March 11, defeating ECU in the first round of the AAC tournament, 72-62.
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