What Went Right And Wrong For The UCF Knights Against UCLA
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The UCF Knights men's basketball team's season came to an end on Friday night in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, falling to 7-seed UCLA, 75-71.
In six March Madness appearances, this marks the fifth time the Knights have lost in the first round, though this one does mark the first time they've lost a first-round game as an at-large team.
While UCF (21-12, 9-9 Big 12) might have been on the losing end of this game, it was never too far behind the Bruins and even got the better of them offensively in the second half. 44-40.
So, here is both what went wrong and what went right in the Knights' final game of the 2026-27 season:
Wrong: Turnovers, Turnovers, Turnovers
While this was less of an issue in the second half, the Knights' turnover problem in the first half contributed to the hole they found themselves in. Their 11 first-half turnovers were equal to the number of turnovers they committed the entire previous game against Arizona.
During those earliest stages of the game, points off turnovers were what fueled the Bruins' comeback after the Knights got out to a six-point lead. By the time the halftime buzzer sounded, UCLA had a 14-3 advantage in points off turnovers. While that gap would close from an 11-point swing to a five-point swing, 19-14, by the final buzzer, the damage had been done.
Right: Three-Point Shooting
After some struggles with it over the final stretch of the season, the Knights found their three-point shots again against the Bruins.
Forward Jordan Burks was a particular highlight here. After going 0-13 over his last four games, the Georgetown transfer ended up tying his season high with six successful shots from beyond the arc, which also accounted for half of the Knights' successful threes for the night. Fellow forward Devan Cambridge also found the basket on a couple of threes, going 2-3 from distance on the night, to close out his college career.
Overall, UCF going 12-32 from three gave it an 18-point swing over UCLA, which went 6-21. These shots helped fuel the second-half rally that made it a two-possession game as the clock was winding down.
Wrong: Free-Throw Shooting
Only three Knights ever stepped up to the charity stripe on Friday, but their performance resulted in the lowest free-throw percentage of the season at 31.3%, down from the previous low of 56.5% from their Big 12 tournament game against Cincinnati.
It's a result that comes less from it being an off night and more so due to exactly which players ended up taking the shots. Forward Jamichael Stillwell and center John Bol shot all but two of the Knights' 16 free-throw attempts. Of all of UCF's players that played more than 500 minutes this season, Stillwell and Bol finished their seasons among the bottom three in free-throw percentage, with Stillwell 70.2% from the line and Bol was 61.5%.
Bol in particular had a rough night, going 0-5, and after missing that fifth free throw with 4:40 to go in the game, Dawkins had seen enough and benched him for the rest of the game. While that move might have been made to get another player on the floor that was having a better night offensively, it had the byproduct of taking UCF's largest big man out of the game, which can have its own reverberations on defense.
Right: Second-Chance Points
The other place that UCF gained an advantage over the Bruins was on the offensive glass, resulting in a 20-9 Knights advantage in second-chance points.
This is where Stillwell truly shone. While he pulled down seven of the Knights' 25 total offensive rebounds, those seven offensive rebounds alone are more than each of the rest of the team's total rebounds. They are the third-most offensive rebounds he's pulled down in a single game this season, and the two games in which he had more were a pair of non-conference matchups.
With the season now complete, the next big date for coach Johnny Dawkins and his program is the opening of the men's college basketball transfer portal on April 7.
Catch up on more UCF news below:
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Bryson Turner is a sports journalist who covers UCF Athletics. Turner has contributed to the Black and Gold Banneret, the home for UCF Athletics on SB Nation. He has called the Orlando area home since the age of 8 and received his bachelor's and master's degrees from UCF.
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