WACO, Texas – The UCF men’s basketball team lost its fourth straight game and sixth over the last seven with a 91-76 loss to Baylor Saturday afternoon.
The Knights started the contest with a trio of turnovers, but only one of them resulted in points for Baylor, a spinning layup for the game’s first points two and a half minutes in. UCF answered with its first points of the afternoon, a three-pointer from Jordan Ivy-Curry. Keyshawn Hall opened his tab with a close shot for two, putting UCF up 5-4. A pair of free throws both ways made way for Baylor’s first triple of the game, a late-shot clock make. Another three gave Baylor a five-point edge. Hall answered with another tough lay in, followed by a steal and fastbreak layup from Ivy-Curry to trim the deficit to one at 12-11.
Baylor answered the fastbreak points with a triple and a layup of their own, forcing UCF to call a timeout at 17-11. The Knights started to click form there, going on a 13-4 run over the next 4:23 of action. Moustapha Thiam got it started hitting a free throw, followed with a gritty layup from Darius Johnson, wo was then fouled from three-point range and made the ensuing trio of free throws to tie the contest at 17. Baylor answered with a pair of points, but Ivy-Curry responded with a pretty floater with a kiss off the backboard to make it 19-all. Shortly after, Baylor’s VJ Edgecomb picked up his third foul, sending him to the bench for the remainder of the half. Out of the media timeout, Johnson missed a layup, but Thiam was there for the clean-up slam. Thiam kept working, fighting for a tough rebound which led to a trip to the line for Ivy-Curry, where he hit one of two. A pair of Baylor free throws were met with a Thiam triple, giving UCF the 25-21 edge.
Baylor finished the half on a 23-11 run to take a nine-point lead into the break at 45-36. After UCF’s four-point edge, the bears pieced together a 7-0 run in 51 seconds to go up 28-25. Three turnovers hampered UCF for a moment, but Benny Williams cleaned up an errant three pointer to put the score at 30-27 to end a 9-0 stretch for the Bears.
Baylor banked a three in out of the under four-minute media timeout, followed by four free throws to make it a 10-point edge with a 16-2 run over nearly three minutes. Hall and Ivy-Curry re-entered the game with two fouls each. Hall drove to the hoop for two but picked up his third foul shortly after. The Bears hit one of the two ensuing free throws to build an 11-point edge. A late shot clock make over Johnson, who was there for the contest, as the half was winding down resulted in a 45-33 advantage for the home team. Johnson responded with a triple to finish the scoring for the half, sending UCF to the locker room down nine. After starting the half shooting 7-for-20, Baylor finished shooting 7-for-10.
Johnson snatched Baylor’s opening possession to start the second half, leading to a Thiam lay in with an assist from Johnson. Hall earned an and-one opportunity and converted, followed by another lay-in from Ivy-Curry to draw UCF back within five. A pair of points at each end of the floor made it 50-45 before Ivy-Curry earned his third foul of the contest, triggering the under-16 media timeout. The Knights began the second half with a 9-5 scoring edge and were in position to make a move to grind their way to a comeback.
The game unraveled for the Black and Gold out of the timeout as Baylor began feasting on both ends of the floor, creating a 16-0 run over a 3:12 span. It started with second chance points for Baylor, followed by a UCF turnover that resulted in another pair of points. A UCF miss ended in two free throws the other way while an errant Knights triple the next time down the court led to two more points for the Bears. UCF burned their third timeout of the day, trying to stop the patch the holes in a game that began to have a sinking feeling.
Out of the 30-second break, UCF’s boat began to take on even more water, missing a three and immediately leading to a made layup with an and-one chance tacked on. The free throw went awry, but Baylor collected the offensive board and added another layup. The Bears once again failed to miss, adding two more makes on as many attempts, forcing the Knights to burn their final timeout of the contest with a dozen minutes to play with a 21-point deficit on the board.
The rest of the game was simply a formality as the Baylor lead grew to 24 points with 10:02 remaining at 73-49. One bright spot of the contest came with just over five minutes to play as Hall earned his 1,000th career point on a layup in the paint for his 19th and final points of the game, finishing the game with exactly 1,000 points.
The scoreboard read 91-76 in favor of Baylor, the seventh time this season that UCF has surrendered more than 90 points. Prior to this season, opponents had posted 90 points or better just five times over the past eight campaigns of the Dawkins era. The Bears shot 53.3% from the field, the sixth time this season an opponent has been north of 50% from the floor.
After starting 3-2 in Big 12 play, the Knights have sunk to 4-8 in league games with eight more to play. The Knights were 4-8 through a dozen Big 12 games last season and also lost six of seven to fall to 4-9. Following the slump, UCF won three of the final five regular season contests.
UP NEXT
The Knights will look to snap their four-game slide against No. 8 Iowa State, which visits Orlando on Tuesday for a 7 p.m. tip on ESPN+.