Men's Hoops Comeback Effort Falls Short at Arizona

TUCSON, Ariz. – The UCF men’s basketball team was tabbed with a tough task on Saturday night, visiting an Arizona team who entered the evening 53-4 in their last 57 games at the McKale Memorial Center. The Knights fought valiantly to the finish, but in the end came up just short of snapping the Wildcats’ five-game winning streak, falling 88-80 late Saturday night.

UCF played a well-rounded game, beating Arizona in plenty of stat categories on the night, but couldn’t get shots to fall when they were needed most. Despite trailing Arizona by just one made three-pointer, the Black and Gold missed the mark on an additional dozen triples, finishing the night with a 22.9% mark from deep compared to their foe’s 39.1% from beyond.

Arizona entered the contest as one of the nation’s best rebounding teams, sitting 13th in the country in rebounds per game and second in the Big 12. The Knights, who entered the evening ranking 11th in the Big 12 in the category, outrebounded the Wildcats by seven boards in the first half and finished with a 42-41 edge on the glass. The Black and Gold took care of the ball, turning the ball over just nine times to Arizona’s 14. UCF also held advantages in points off turnovers (18-9), points in the paint (36-32), second chance points (23-12) and fast break points (13-8). While the Knights never led and at one point were down by 17 points in Saturday’s road test, the Black and Gold were never out of it and fought for the full 40 minutes.

A pair of free throws, followed by a triple, all from Arizona’s Caleb Love gave the Wildcats an early 5-0 edge in the game’s first two minutes. Moustapha Thiam got UCF on the scoreboard with a dunk off a nice feed from Keyshawn Hall, who then again assisted Thiam after an Arizona jumper to make it 7-4. The Wildcats jumped up six on the Knights thanks to a three-pointer, but Darius Johnson answered right back with his first triple of the evening to keep it a one-possession game early.

UCF continued to hang with Arizona, down five with 13:16 remaining in the second half, but five straight points forced the Knights to burn a timeout with the deficit now in double digits. The Wildcats extended their 5-0 run into nine consecutive points, pulling out in front of UCF by 14 with the opening frame halfway gone.

The tide of the first half began to turn in favor of the Knights. At 33-19, Mikey Williams etched his name onto the stat sheet with a layup. A minute later and after a pair of missed Wildcat threes, Johnson buried his second three-pointer of the contest to bring the deficit back to single digits at 33-24. It popped back to a dozen point advantage for just a moment before Rokas Jocius converted on an and-one opportunity to draw it back to nine. Hall cashed in on a pair of free throws, making him six-for-six in the first half from the charity stripe. A quick two points for Arizona were matched by a triple from Jocius, providing a spark to get the Black and Gold back with six.

A 7-0 run starting with just over two minutes left in the opening stanza powered UCF back to even, starting with Jordan Ivy-Curry’s first two points of the evening, followed with a clutch triple from Benny Williams and another jumper from Thiam to level it at 42-42. A converted Wildcat and-one chance sent the home team into the locker room up three.

Johnson began the second half scoring just 13 seconds in, nailing a triple to tie things at 45-45. However, it yielded to a quick 6-0 Arizona run. UCF cut it back to three at 55-52, but Arizona pieced together another run, this time with eight straight points to make it 63-52 with 12:42 to play.

The deficit continued to hover around a dozen to the under-eight-minute media timeout as UCF trailed 74-62 with 7:52 to go. The Knights continued to make baskets, but Arizona kept coming up with answers, going up 17 at the 6:49 and 5:56 marks. At 84-67, UCF made a late surge of six consecutive points, two each from Dior Johnson, Mikey and Darius.

Down 13 with 3:12 to play, UCF scored six of the game’s final seven points to trim the final deficit to eight at 88-80.

Hall led the Knights with 22 points on the evening, his sixth 20+ point night of the season and 16th of his career. Dallan ‘Deebo’ Coleman, entered the contest making eight of his last 11 three-point attempts hit his first attempt from deep on the night but proceeded to miss his next four. Mikey had his best game at the collegiate level, scoring nine points with an assist and a rebound to go with a team high plus-minus of 13.

The loss snaps UCF’s three-game Big 12 road winning streak after the Knights beat Oklahoma State and TCU in their final two road games of the 2023-24 campaign before besting Texas Tech 87-83 to open league play this season. Although Arizona was receiving votes in the most recent sets of polls, UCF’s seven-game winning streak against unranked opponents also came to an end.

The Knights are still hunting for their first win in the state of Arizona. UCF’s contest against the Wildcats was not the first in the state as the Black and Gold played a pair of games in the Fiesta Bowl Classic in December 2005 in Arizona’s arena. The Knights fell to Western Kentucky and Sam Houston State in those games.

UP NEXT
The Knights will stay in The Grand Canyon State, heading to Tempe to take on Arizona State for the first time in program history. That contest is set to tipoff on Tuesday at 11 p.m. ET on ESPNU.

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