NEW ORLEANS – It was a rough Thursday night in New Orleans for the UCF men's basketball team (17-10, 9-8 AAC) as the Knights couldn't get anything going against Tulane (13-13, 10-7 AAC), ultimately falling to the Green Wave 82-67 at Fogelman Arena in Devlin Fieldhouse.
"Tulane played well. I thought for a while in the first half it was a good ballgame, but then we made some mistakes and turned it over a few times to allow them to gain some momentum," said head coach Johnny Dawkins. "They were able to ride that momentum into halftime."
UCF freshman guard Darius Johnson led the Knights with 15 points, with all of his points from the field coming on 3-of-9 three-point attempts and the other six coming from 6-of-7 made free throws. Junior CJ Walker notched his second double-double of the season after grabbing a career-high 16 rebounds to go along with 13 points.
For Tulane, five players scored in the double-digits, led by Jaylen Forbes, who scored 16 while adding six boards.
Heading into halftime, UCF was down 34-18 and the Knights were never able to recover from the slow start. UCF never had the lead in the ballgame and they were down by as much as 27 (67-40) at one point.
Both sides were playing without key pieces due to injury as Tulane was without American Athletic Conference Preseason Rookie of the Year Jalen Cook while both Darin Green Jr. and Brandon Mahan were sidelined for the Knights.
The Knights will stay on the road as the team heads to Oklahoma to cap off the regular season at Tulsa. Tip-off is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 6.
There are two scenarios where the Knights can still earn a first-round bye in the conference tournament. Either way, UCF needs to win at Tulsa (9-19, 3-14 AAC). If they do, scenario one would be if Tulane falls to SMU (21-7, 12-4 AAC) and ECU (15-13, 6-10 AAC) beats Wichita State (14-12, 5-9 AAC) on Sunday. Alternatively, if South Florida (8-21, 3-14) beats Temple (16-11, 9-7 AAC), the Knights would also earn the bye.
