What Went Wrong In UCF Hoops' Loss To Cincinnati
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The UCF Knights men's basketball team was stymied on the road by the Cincinnati Bearcats on Sunday, 92-72, making the home team the victor in both instances the teams faced each other this season.
Here are the three things that went wrong for the Knights in Fifth Third Arena:
1. No Luck From Three
The Bearcats flipped the script on the Knights from the three-point line. After shooting for the lowest percentage from three of any UCF opponent this season, their previous matchup at 15.8 percent, Cincinnati's 61 percent shooting from beyond the arc is the best of any UCF opponent this season.
On the Knights' end, they ended up shooting 26 percent from three, or 6-23. Compared to the Bearcats' 11-18, it created a 15-point advantage for the home team.
2. Scorers Neutralized
While UCF's deep starting five has proved to be an asset for most of this season, none of them netted better than a negative 15 plus/minus on Wednesday, with two of them close to completely getting neutralized by Cincinnati on Wednesday.
The Bearcats pounced on guard Themus Fulks, one of the Knights' leading scorers, and rendered him scoreless for the first time this season. In fact, they even held him to just two shot attempts and two assists. It's a performance reminiscent of the Vanderbilt game, which saw Fulks score 4 points with 4 assists in 19 minutes on the court.
"They had awareness of where he was," Dawkins said after the game. "They had a game plan to try to, you know, limit what he did, and I thought they did a good job."
In addition to Fulks, center John Bol's contributions were also limited. He is the Knights' highest-percentage shooter, making 75.3 percent of his shots this season, and one of their leading rebounders, averaging 5.3 per game. The Bearcats limited him to just two shots, keeping him to four points and three rebounds.
Bol also got into foul trouble early with the Bearcats drawing two fouls from him in the game's first 5:10. This limited him to his lowest amount of time on the court since the Iowa State game on Jan. 20 and made things harder for a smaller UCF squad to stand up to a 7'2" Moustapha Thiam and a 6'11" Baba Miller, which kept the points in the paint battle close.
3. Not Taking Advantage Of Opportunities
Despite Cincinnati's runs at the end of the first half and to start the second half, the Knights' bench managed to rally to make it a six-point deficit with 9:33 to go. UCF proceeded to go 5-19 from the floor for the rest of the afternoon while the Bearcats converted their next six shots from the floor and reestablished a 20-point lead in nearly three and a half minutes.
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The Knights' next chance to rebound from this comes on Saturday at 6 p.m. when they host West Virginia.
Catch up on more UCF news below:
Three Things UCF Hoops Needs To Remember In Lead-up To March
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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