Men's Hoops Set for Regular Season Finale at West Virginia

ORLANDO – The UCF men's basketball team is set for its final regular season contest, visiting West Virginia.

GAME INFORMATION
Date: Saturday, March 8, 2025
Time: 5 p.m.
Location: Morgantown, W.Va.; WVU Coliseum
TV: ESPN+
TV Talent: Pete Sousa (PxP), Sean Harrington (Analyst)
Radio: FM 96.9/AM 740 The Game
Radio Talent: Marc Daniels (PxP)

KNIGHT NOTES

• Four-year senior Darius Johnson put on a show on his Senior Knight, dropping a career-high 36 points with seven threes. Johnson is one of just seven players in the Big 12 that have spent four years at one place and one of three to tally over 1,000 points while leading the group in career points.
• Johnson became the first Knight since Jermaine Taylor did so in 2009 to score 36 on senior night at UCF. Taylor eventually became UCF’s first NBA draft pick in the modern era and second overall. Wildly, both Johnson and Taylor scored exactly 27 points in the second half to propel their teams to a win, Taylor doing so on March 7, 2009 in a 74-71 win over ECU.
• Johnson swished home seven triples on his senior night, one shy of tying his career-best from long range. He is now one of just two Big 12 players this season with multiple games with seven or more threes, joined by Gabe Madsen (Utah). With the win, UCF is now 8-1 in games on senior night under Coach Dawkins, the only loss being to No. 1 Houston last year. The Knights also celebrated Benny Williams and Deebo Coleman alongside Johnson in the pregame Senior Knight ceremony. Williams and Coleman joined UCF after spending three seasons at Syracuse and Georgia Tech, respectively.
• With 73 blocks on the campaign, swatting three vs. Oklahoma State, Moustapha Thiam set the UCF rookie record for blocks in a season, passing Tacko Fall’s 70 back in 2015-16. Overall, he is alone in fourth for single season blocks at UCF, needing two to jump into third. To set the single season blocks record at UCF, Thiam would need to tally 95 before the end of the campaign. Following his eight block game, Thiam leads the Big 12 in blocks after trailing ASU’s Jayden Quaintance for most of the season. According to KenPom, Thiam ranks 22nd in the nation in block percentage with a 9.7% clip.
• UCF earned 10 or more three-pointers for the 10th time this season with exactly 10 against Oklahoma State on March 5, the first time doing so after the month of February saw them do it zero times. To put in perspective the shooting capability of this year’s team, the Knights hit 10 or more three pointers just twice last season. Additionally, UCF has four games where they’ve shot 50% or better from the floor after doing that four times in the previous campaign.
• The Knights average 8.5 made three pointers per game, close to the highest number of made threes during Dawkins’ tenure at 8.8 during the 2021-22 campaign. The high clip has helped UCF to its highest scoring offense under Dawkins as well.
• After selling the most season tickets in program history for a second straight season, UCF welcomed a record number of fans for the second year in a row as well, hosting 136,833 for an average of 7,602 across the 18-game home slate. With UCF's home slate now complete, four games from this season grace the top-20 highest attended games list, including a sellout of 9,669 fans in attendance for the game against Kansas on Jan. 5, 2025. Six games from the inaugural Big 12 campaign last season are on the top 20 list.

BIG 12 CHAMPIONSHIP SEEDING SCENARIOS

• Per the Big 12, UCF's seed at the Big 12 Championship will be determined by the following:
  • No. 11 seed with win + Utah & Cincinnati losses
  • No. 12 seed with win + Utah loss + Cincinnati win
  • No. 13 if Utah and Cincinnati win
  • No. 14 if loss + Oklahoma State win

THE MATCHUP

• Saturday's contest is the first time the two sides will meet this season. The two split the season series last year, with UCF winning the first meeting at home 72-59 before losing in Morgantown 77-67. The only other time the two crossed paths was in 2017 when West Virginia earned a landslide victory.

SCOUTING WEST VIRGINIA

• West Virginia has won nine of its last 11 Senior Day games.
• Javon Small was named to the final 20 for the John R. Wooden Late Midseason Watch List, the final 10 for the Bob Cousy Point Guard of the Year Award, the Naismith Trophy Midseason List and to the Oscar Robertson Trophy Midseason Watch List.
• Javon Small was named a Midseason Second Team All-American by The Sporting News and The Athletic.
• Small has scored 547 points at WVU, marking the 50th time a WVU player has scored 500 or more points in a season. Currently, he ranks 33rd at WVU for most points in a season.
• Darian DeVries was named the recipient of the Jim Phelan Award 'Mid-Season' honor, presented annually to the top head coach in Division I college basketball.
• In 19 conference games this season, opponents have made 89 more free throws than the Mountaineers.
• WVU is 621-191 (.767) all-time at the WVU Coliseum and 262-77 at the WVU Coliseum in the last 21 seasons.
• WVU finished 4-6 on the road in Big 12 road games (wins at Kansas, at Colorado, at Cincinnati and at Utah). The Mountaineers had a combined road conference record of 2-25 in the previous three seasons.
• WVU is 276-105 in its last 381 games vs. unranked teams, including winners of 156 of its last 191 at the Coliseum.
• Darian DeVries is 6-9 against ranked teams during his head coaching career. He is 4-4 at WVU with wins over No. 2 Iowa State, No. 3 Gonzaga, at No. 7 Kansas and No. 24 Arizona.