ORLANDO—UCF junior guard Darin Green Jr. has taken more three-point shots this season than any other player in the American Athletic Conference.
The Knights' leading scorer showed that practice apparently makes perfect as his long-distance hoop right in front of the UCF bench at the final buzzer gave the Knights a come-from-behind 69-66 victory Sunday afternoon at Addition Financial Arena.
Green's final dagger, the last of his team-high 19 points, gave him five or more threes in six games in 2021-22.
"I kind of thought it was going in," said Green, who said the last time he hit a shot to win a game in that fashion was to claim a regional championship in high school.
"I was actually trying to drive, but with 2.3 seconds left I just had to let it go."
"I thought we got what we wanted," said UCF coach Johnny Dawkins. "When he's shooting the basketball I'm always thinking it's going to go in. He (Green) took his time and got a nice rhythm shot."
UCF senior Darius Perry added 12 points, and sophomore Ty Freeman had 11 off the bench. C.J. Walker scored nine points, while freshman Darius Johnson had eight points and a team-high eight rebounds and inbounded the ball on the winning play.
There were 14 lead changes and 10 ties in the contest.
"It was a fistfight the entire game," said Dawkins.
The UCF victory enabled the Knights to extend their win streak against the Pirates to 14—including a 92-85 overtime UCF win last month in Greenville when the Knights came back from 20 points down in the second half.
East Carolina has not beaten UCF since a one-point overtime triumph in the 2015 AAC Championship and has not won in Orlando since February 2015.
The Pirates had taken a 55-50 lead with less than eight minutes to play thanks to an 8-0 run in a 2:04 span. Perry tied it for the Knights at 60 on a reverse layup at the 2:57 mark—and the home team never trailed again.
Twice in the final 1:03 the Knights had taken two-point leads on free-throw pairs by Walker and then Perry (his at :23.3). But ECU tied the game at 66 at :06.9 on a tip-in by UCF's Johnson (it was officially listed as a wrong-basket team goal).
For East Carolina, junior guard Tristen Newton led with 19 points (he had 27 in January versus UCF). Junior guard Tremont Robinson-White finished with 14, and sophomore swingman Brandon Suggs had 13.
UCF led by as many as seven in the first half (at 11-4). The Knights' two-point halftime advantage (32-30) came after five ties and eight lead changes.
Veteran guard Brandon Mahan, a 10.6-point scorer for the Knights, did not dress after injuring an ankle Thursday at Houston.
UCF (16-9, 8-7) finishes a string of four home games in five outings with a Wednesday night meeting with Cincinnati (9 p.m. EST on ESPNU) in the Knights' final home game of the season.
The Knights have won four of their last six. ECU has lost eight of its last 10. UCF's win in Greenville in January started a six-game losing streak for the Pirates. The visitors were looking for their third straight conference road win.
ECU (13-13, 4-10) returns home for consecutive dates Wednesday against South Florida and Saturday versus Tulsa.
