ORLANDO – The Knights are back at home Sunday afternoon as the UCF men's basketball team (15-9, 7-7 AAC) will look to bounce back with a game against ECU (13-12, 4-9 AAC) at 2:00 p.m. inside of Addition Financial Arena, presented by the UCF Foundation.
The game will be streamed live on ESPN+, with Marc Daniels also on the call on FM 96.9 The Game.
The Knights turned it on in the second half to come back and defeat ECU in the first game of the series back on Jan. 18 in Greenville, North Carolina. UCF was down as much as 20 (48-28) as the Knights couldn't find their rhythm to open play and were shooting just 37.9 percent from the field and 28.6 percent from deep headed into halftime to trail the Pirates 44-28.
Over the course of the second half at ECU, the Knights shot 53.3 percent from the field, including 64.3 percent (9-of-14) from deep to work their way back into the game. With the Knights down three, and with just 24 seconds left in the game, Darius Perry drained one from the top of the arc to tie it up at 72 and send it to overtime, where UCF finished off the comeback to take down ECU, 92-85.
UCF handedly has the advantage in the all-time series, having won 27 of 36 games played against the Pirates. UCF has never lost to ECU under coach Dawkins (13-0).
The Knights are looking to bounce back from a tough loss (70-52) at No. 14 Houston on Thursday. With the regular season drawing close to an end and with the Knights sitting in seventh place in The American heading into the game, a UCF win would move the Knights past .500 in AAC action (currently 7-7).
Game Information
Date: Sunday, Feb. 20
Time: 2 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 109-68 since starting with the Knights in 2016, a win percentage of .615, 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 8-52 all-time against ranked opponents, but 5-18 against ranked teams under Dawkins.
THE QUEST FOR 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.
- UCF fifth-year senior Brandon Mahan is the next Knight in line to reach 1,000 if he is able to do so this season (926 career points).
- Junior Darin Green Jr. (884) and fifth-year senior Cheikh Mbacke Diong (905) are also closing in on the career milestone.
SHOCKED THOSE 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 tries.
- 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.
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.
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