ORLANDO – Coming off a nearly week-long hiatus after beating Wichita State, the UCF men's basketball team (14-8, 6-6 AAC) goes for back-to-back wins this Valentine's Day as the Knights welcome Tulsa (8-15, 2-10 AAC) to Addition Financial Arena Monday night, presented by First Watch.
The game is set to tip at 7:00 p.m. ET on ESPN+, with Marc Daniels also on the call on FM 96.9 The Game.
The Golden Hurricane have won just two games in AAC action to this point in the season, picking up victories over South Florida on Jan. 29 (76-45), and more recently, against Cincinnati on Feb. 12 (83-77).
Tulsa is led by Jeriah Horne and Sam Griffin. Horne, a 6-foot-7 graduate-student forward, is fifth in the conference with 16.1 points per game. He leads the team with 7.0 rebounds per game (third in the conference), 33 steals and 17 blocks. He is also shooting 40.7 on 118 three-point attempts.
Griffin, a sophomore guard, is averaging 15.4 points per contest. His 47 assists and 29 steals are good for second place on the team.
The Knights picked up wins in both games against Tulsa last season, defeating them 73-69 at home and 65-58 in Tulsa. Monday night's contest serves as a makeup to the originally scheduled Jan. 8 game that was postponed due to COVID-19 concerns with the Tulsa program.
UCF has won 4 of the last 5 games played against Tulsa, but the Golden Hurricane hold the all-time series lead at 14-11.
Game Information
Date: Monday, Feb. 14
Time: 7 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN+
Radio: FM 96.9 The Game
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 108-68 since starting with the Knights in 2016, a win percentage of .613, 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 5-17 against ranked teams under Dawkins.
SHOCKED THE SHOCKERS
- UCF picked up its first win in program history over Wichita State on Feb. 8, taking down the Shockers 71-66 at Addition Financial Arena.
- The win was UCF's first over Wichita State in nine games.
- The Knights have still yet to win in Wichita.
- Fifth-year guard Brandon Mahan had 19 points and a game-high-tying nine rebounds for UCF.
- Junior guard Darin Green Jr. added 17 points on five three-point goals.
- Senior front-liner Cheikh Mbacke Diong contributed 11 points and nine rebounds, while Darius Perry also had 10 points.
PERRY PASSES 1,000
- Fifth-year senior point guard Darius Perry scored his 1,000th career point in UCF's win over Wichita State on Feb. 8 after dropping 10 points to go along with three steals, three assists and three rebounds in the win.
- Perry proved to be a leader for the Knights in his first season in Orlando, leading the way with 14.7 points per game in 2020-21, good for seventh in the conference.
- Perry was named a team captain, along with Cheikh Mbacke Diong and Levy Renaud to begin the 2021-22 season.
- Perry immediately proved to be worthy of that honor as he led the Knights with 18 points, four assists and four offensive rebounds to help the Knights edge out Robert Morris in their season opener.
- Perry is currently fourth in the conference with 4.6 assists per game.
- He is second on the team with 11.3 points per game and has twice been named to the AAC honor roll (Dec. 27 and Feb. 7)
- The former Louisville Cardinal was a third-team all-conference honoree last season.
- Perry also led UCF in assists with 3.4 per contest, was second among qualifiers with a 38.3 three-point field goal percentage and was second behind only Mahan with a 86.4 free throw percentage.
- Perry made 10 made 3-pointers against Tulsa (Feb. 6) and Wichita State (Feb. 10) in 2020-21, which were the most made threes in back-to-back games by a Knight since Matt Williams had 10 against Houston and Memphis on Feb. 1 and Feb. 4, 2017.
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