ORLANDO – The UCF men's basketball is back in action this Sunday as it hosts Samford for a 2 p.m. contest inside Addition Financial Arena.
The Knights were edged by Miami by a score of 66-64 last Sunday. UCF was down by as many as 13 during the second half and nearly rallied to erase the deficit a few times. Darius Johnson led the team in scoring, netting 24 points, scoring 22 of them in the second half. The mark was a career high for Johnson who was playing in just his second contest of the season.
The Black and Gold have been one of the country's top defenses so far this season. They rank 31st in scoring defense, holding opponents to 59.6 points per game. Opponents shoot just 37.4% from the field against the Knights, placing them as the No. 31 field goal percentage defense in the nation. UCF is even better at shutting down the three-ball, holding teams to 25.4% from beyond the arc, ranking 24th in the country.
The Knights have been strong on the glass, outrebounding opponents in four of their seven games thus far. They have won three of the four games in which they collect more boards and have won two of three games in which they get outrebounded. UCF gathers 39.43 rebounds per game, 13.14 of which are on the offensive side of the ball. Those numbers rank 59th and 39th in the country respectively.
Taylor Hendricks enters the contest as the winner of two straight American Athletic Conference Rookie of the Week honors. This past week, Hendricks averaged 12 points and seven rebounds per game in UCF's pair of contests. He leads the Knights in scoring, averaging 14.7 points per game. He's grabbed the most boards of anyone on the squad as well, collecting 51 for an average of 7.3 per contest. He also leads the team in blocks with a dozen.
A win against Samford would mean the Knights are out to a 6-2 start. It would be the second straight season UCF has started with that mark and the fourth time in the last five years. One of those seasons included a run to the NCAA Tournament as the 2018-19 team began 6-2 before ripping off seven consecutive victories on their way to a No. 9 seed and the program's first NCAA Tournament victory.
The Knights are set to play the Bulldogs for the first time since 2003. The two teams used to be conference mates as members of the Atlantic Sun before Samford left for the Ohio Valley Conference for the 2003-04. The Knights were in the Atlantic Sun for just two seasons after the Bulldogs' departure as UCF transitioned to Conference USA for the 2005-06 campaign. The Black and Gold have won the past three meetings against Samford.
The Bulldogs have dropped three straight contests after winning their first six of 2022-23. The three losses have all been in tight contests, falling to Louisiana Tech by three, Tennessee Southern by two and DePaul by five in overtime.
Samford gets to the charity stripe often, earning 27.6 free throws a game which is sixth most in the country. They make 20.2 of them on average, the second-best mark in the nation. They're ranked 13th scoring offense, netting 86.2 points per game.
A.J. Staton-McCray has 22 steals on the season, just three behind the nation's leader. Ques Clover leads the Bulldogs in scoring with an average of 13.8 points per game. For more members of the Samford squad average double digit points per game, with Jermaine Marshall averaging 11.8, Logan Dye with an 11.3 mark, Jaden Campell just behind him at 11.1 and Bubba Parham checking in with an even 10.0.
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