Feb. 5, 2010
By Isaac Babcock
The Voice
Tuesday night the UCF men's basketball team bounced back against C-USA bottom-dweller East Carolina with a 67-56 win. It was only the second time this season the Knights have shot below 48 percent and won.
Taylor Young took over on center, leading his team with 16 points in the game, plus 6 assists. A.J. Tyler was instrumental on defense, grabbing 9 boards while scoring 10 points.
Nearly absent from the scoreboard despite playing 25 minutes as a starter, Keith Clanton scored just 2 points in the game after acting as his team's top gun in the past week. But other Knights came together to even out the score for the win.
The game was a big reversal for the Knights, who had struggled against conference foes so far.
They were three games into their longest losing streak of the season at the start of the week, coming off a devastating 55-50 loss to Tulsa on Saturday night.
Thirty seconds before that moment, the Knights (11-11, 3-5) were poised to tie the game and nearly even out their Conference USA record. After the final ball dropped, the Knights held the dubious distinction of the second-worst record in the 12-team conference.
Three of their five conference losses had come on their home court, on which the Knights had only lost one game all season before conference play began.
That recent home court disadvantage couldn't have been more apparent than Saturday night against Tulsa, when the Knights were down by only a 3-pointer in the final minute of the game, but wild shooting and other offensive flubs threw the Golden Hurricane's defensive prowess into stark relief.
In the entire game, the Knights would average only 37.3 percent shooting, but only picked up 10 offensive rebounds. The Hurricane, on the other hand, picked up 25 defensive rebounds after Knight shots missed, taking away second chances and easily spreading the scoring gap.
Despite near-season lows in shooting in the second half of the game, Coach Kirk Speraw praised his team for its defense.
"For us to shoot 28 percent in the second half … and [Tulsa is] fighting to hang on in the second half that tells you what a good job our guys did on defense," he said.
The Knights substantially improved against Tulsa, whom they were facing for the second time this year. In their last meeting the Knights fell 90-70.
Aggressive C-USA defenses have proved the bane of the Knights' shooting as of late. During the past four games, including their recent win over East Carolina, they averaged 37 percent shooting from the floor. In their 78-71 win over Houston before the start of the streak, they'd shot more than 50 percent.
Only four of the Knights' 10 wins this season have come after they made less than 50 percent of their shots.
When they've shot less than 47 percent, they've only won two games, including a dismal performance against Howard on Nov. 17 in which the Knights were actually out-shot 41.5 percent to 37.9 percent, but took enough shots to win 68-59.
At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 10, the Knights tip off in Memphis (15-6, 5-2).
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