ORLANDO – Fresh off an overtime win at ECU, the UCF men's basketball team (11-5, 3-3 AAC) returns to Addition Financial Arena this Saturday, Jan. 22 as the Knights are set to take on Tulane (7-8, 4-2 AAC) at 2:00 p.m.
The game will air live on ESPNU, with Marc Daniels leading the call on FM 96.9 The Game as well. The first 500 students in attendance will receive a free UCF beanie.
The Knights' season has been full of highs and lows to this point in the season. The black and gold already have a handful of impressive victories under their belt in wins over Miami, Michigan and Memphis, but they've also dropped some heartbreakers to South Florida and Temple.
It looked like UCF's latest game at ECU would fall under the latter category as the Knights were down 20 at one point before turning it on late to tie the game up and win in overtime, 92-85.
UCF is currently sixth in the conference standings, while the Green Wave enter Saturday's game in third.
Tulane is led by third-year head coach Ron Hunter, who is 29-39 all-time at the helm of the program. Green Wave freshman Jalen Cook has been lights out for Tulane to this point in the season, averaging 19.6 points (second in the conference), 2.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.
Saturday's game will mark the first of two between UCF and Tulane, with the Knights scheduled to make the return trip to New Orleans on March 3.
Game Information
Date: Saturday, Jan. 22
Time: 2 p.m. ET
TV: ESPNU
Radio: FM 96.9 The Game
TAKING ON TULANE
- The Knights lead the Green Wave 18-4 in the all-time series.
- UCF is 8-1 at home, 10-2 in New Orleans, and 0-1 at neutral sites versus Tulane
- The Knights have won the last two contests over the Green Wave after beating them in both games last season.
- On Feb. 12, 2021, the Knights won 53-49 over the Green Wave in Orlando after coming back from down 40-32.
- Just eight days later on Feb. 20, 2021, UCF won again, this time 84-81 in New Orleans as then freshman Isaiah Adams scored a career-high 26 points and nearly set a program record by going a near-perfect 10-for-11 from the field.
- Tulane is led by third-year head coach Ron Hunter, who is 29-39 all-time at the helm of the program.
DAWKINS ERA AT UCF
- Johnny Dawkins picked up career win No. 100 in the Knights' win over N.C. A&T on Dec. 11, becoming just the third coach in UCF history to reach the milestone.
- Dawkins is 105-65 since starting with the Knights in 2016, a win percentage of .619, the second best of any UCF coach (Torchy Clark, .754 from 1969-83).
- He has the third most wins over any UCF coach, trailing only Clark's 274 and Kirk Speraw's 247 from 1993-2010.
- Dawkins is the fastest coach to reach 100 wins in program history in the Division I era, needing only 162 games to do so.
- Dawkins had his squad off to a 4-0 start to begin the 2021-22 season, tying his 2017-18 mark for his best start to a season at UCF.
- 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 8-50 all-time against ranked opponents, but 5-16 against ranked teams under Dawkins.
TAMED THE TIGERS
- The UCF men's basketball team defended its home court in a big way on Jan. 12 against visiting Memphis, taking down the Tigers 74-64 to move to 10-4, 2-2 on the season.
- In the process, UCF wiped out a handful of streaks as Memphis had defeated the Knights five straight times--and the Tigers had won three straight games (and four of five) at the time.
- Meanwhile, UCF had lost two in a row after winning five straight. All that came to an end after a superior early shooting exhibition by UCF paved the way in the victory over Memphis despite multiple late runs by the Tigers.
- Junior guard Darin Green Jr. notched 20 points (eight of 14 from the field). His four three-point goals keynoted a 45.8% shooting effort by the home team (11 of 28 on long-distance attempts).
- Junior C.J. Walker and freshman Darius Johnson added 12 points each--and Walker and senior Cheikh Mbacke Diong had seven rebounds apiece.
- Fifth-year guard Darius Perry had 11 points and five assists for UCF, as six different Knights connected for at least one three-pointer.
- The Tigers missed 12 of 18 free throws, turned the ball over 19 times and shot only 39.7%.
- The win marked the Knights' first over Memphis since Feb. 16, 2019 (W, 79-72), and moved the all-time series to 27-7 in favor of the Tigers.
DECEMBER STREAK
- UCF was riding high on a five-game winning streak after defeating Bethune-Cookman (12/5), North Carolina A&T (12/11), Temple (12/15), North Alabama (12/22) and Michigan (12/30) before their streak came to an end with a loss at SMU on Jan. 2.
- Over that stretch, the Knights outscored opponents 389-296 while shooting 49.6 percent from the field and 37.7 percent from three-point range.
- The Knights held a +7.2 rebounding margin over opponents during their winning streak.
- Meanwhile, UCF was holding opponents to a 36.9 field goal percentage, including 27.6 percent from deep.
- Junior Darin Green Jr. led the team over the five-game streak with 17.0 points per game and was shooting 48.7 percent from three (19-of-39).
- Darius Perry was dishing the ball out with solid efficiency as he led the Knights with 29 assists over that stretch (5.8 per game).
WIN OVER THE WOLVERINES
- UCF capped off non-conference play with a bang on Dec. 30 as the Knights ran away with a second-half lead to fend off visiting Michigan 85-71.
- The Knights capitalized on the energy of 9,358 strong at Addition Financial Arena, the third largest crowd in UCF history, to secure the win over the Wolverines.
- The crowd also marked the most for UCF at a home game before January of any year.
- The win finalized UCF's non-conference record at 8-2 and marked the Knights' fifth straight win and first over the Wolverines.
- The Wolverines carried a 35-31 lead into halftime, and the deficit only grew for the Knights to kick off the second half as Michigan extended its lead to 12 just two minutes into the second half before the Kngihts called time to regroup.
- The stoppage worked as the black and gold went on an 18-2 run shortly after play resumed to take a 55-51 lead and they didn't look back.
- The Knights shot 72.0 percent from the floor and hit all eight of their three-point attempts in the second half to outscore the Wolverines 54-36 in the half and secure the victory.
- Darin Green Jr. poured in a career-high 27 points on a career-best seven made three-pointers.
- Meanwhile, Brandon Mahan had season highs of 26 points and five made threes to lead the way.
- The duo of Green and Mahan combined to go 12-of-16 from beyond the arc as they totaled 53 of the Knights' 85 total points.
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