ORLANDO – As the starting lineups for the UCF Knights and Winthrop Eagles women's basketball teams were announced over the Addition Financial Arena loudspeaker Monday evening, a raucous student section met a final pregame announcement with bellowing cheers.
"A new era of UCF Knights basketball has begun!"
Indeed, a flurry of early 3-point shots and stifling first-quarter defense set the tone for a dominant 72-32 Knights victory over the Eagles in head coach Sytia Messer's UCF debut.
Messer in April was named the 13th head coach in program history on the heels of serving as associate head coach with LSU last season. The 22-year coaching veteran owns a resume that boasts a national title, five NCAA Elite Eight appearances and 11 berths in the NCAA tournament overall as an assistant coach.
"It feels very good to get that first win," Messer said. "It's been over 10 years since I've been a head coach on the sidelines. Just to get that first win here at UCF, UCF is a special place. To be the leader of this program is amazing, and I don't take that lightly."
After it finished with just 105 made 3-pointers a season ago, marking the third-fewest in the American Athletic Conference, UCF (1-0) drilled three of its first four tries from beyond the arc and 11 total during the contest.
A pair of threes by Rachel Ranke and a third from Laila Jewett helped build an early 11-2 Knights lead with 5:54 to play in the first quarter. Destiny Thomas, who would post her fourth career double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds after recording three such games last season, added a layup for her first two points of the game as well.
"I call her 'Old Faithful,'" Messer said of Thomas. "Destiny in the past has not been an offensive threat for our program, though she's a great rebounder. We expect more from her, she's got to give us on offense and just be solid on the boards. And I feel like she's bought into that right now."
A UCF team that entered the season with five transfers and three freshmen would yield nothing more the remainder of the period following an Eagles (0-1) free throw with 5:03 on the clock. Ashton Verhulst later drilled the Knights' fourth 3-point shot of the first quarter to send UCF to the end of the frame with a 16-3 lead.
"I thought it was great," Verhulst said of the win. "I think every game is important for continuing to build that team chemistry. But I thought everyone played an important part tonight. I think we played really good as a unit."
The Knights held the pressure on the Eagles in the opening minutes of the second quarter. Thomas and Bryana Hardy ignited an 11-4 rally that Verhulst capped off with her second triple of the game, and her team's fifth, that launched UCF ahead by a 27-7 score. Hardy's 14 points marked a game-high.
Winthrop inched back into the affairs with an 11-6 run of its own down the stretch, but two more triples by Verhulst and Tiani Abrams helped send the Knights to the locker room holding a comfortable 42-18 advantage at halftime of the first-ever meeting between the schools.
The Knights again produced a suffocating quarter on the defensive end out of the break, holding Winthrop to just two field goals and a pair of free throws, and did not allow a point for the final 5:36 of the quarter. Three more triples courtesy of Abrams and Mya Burns in the fourth quarter would later help secure the Knights' 40-point win.
Abrams, Thomas and Verhulst joined Hardy with double-digit points, tallying 12, 12 and 11, respectively, to help pad UCF's robust scoresheet. The Knights will now look to build on their momentum Thursday evening with a 6 p.m. home tipoff against Mercer.
"The thing that I'm talking to our players about is all hands on deck and that one percent," Messer continued. "You've got to get one percent better each day for us to win the games that we expect to win, and I feel like they're working towards it."
