Knights get their just deserts from turnovers
If there was any chance for the UCF men’s basketball team to defeat the Miami Hurricanes on Tuesday night, the Knights threw it away in the second half.
Mistakes doomed UCF during a 79-70 home loss.
Coach Johnny Dawkins attributed the Knights’ 17 turnovers, off which Miami scored 21 points, to “trying to do too much with the basketball.”
“Most of the time they were unforced turnovers,” he said. “There was nothing where [the Hurricanes] were pressing and trapping and doing things like that.”
Miami (2-1) effectively put the game away with a 14-2 run early in the second half. Four Knights turnovers during that four-minute stretch led directly to six points for the Hurricanes. By the end of the spurt, they led 52-41.
The Knights wouldn’t cut the deficit to fewer than six the rest of the way.
Defense, which has been the calling card of any Dawkinscoached team, also let UCF down in the second half. Hurricanes guards Dejan Vasiljevic and Harlond Beverly scored 13 points each as Miami shot 56.7% from the floor and scored 49 points after halftime.
“I just feel like we didn’t come out ready in the second half,” UCF guard Darin Green Jr. said. “We played a little sloppy on defense. It was too easy for the guards on their team to score on us.”
Added Dawkins: “That’s not our defense right there. We’re better than that, and we have more pride than that. We have to get back to our fundamentals, the foundation of what we’ve done here.”
Green and guard Frank Bertz paced the Knights (1-1) with 13 points each. Guard Ceasar DeJesus contributed 11.
Hurricanes guard Kameron McGusty totaled a game-high 17 points and 10 rebounds.
UCF trailed by as many as 10 points in the first half but was able to claw back thanks to its defensive effort, which held Miami to just 11 points over the final 13 minutes, 29 seconds before the break. A couple of 3-pointers from Bertz and two secondchance baskets from guard Dazon Ingram helped UCF gain a three-point lead.
“I’m just taking solace in that if we can just keep defending like we’ve done in the first half for 40 minutes, we’ll get back to UCF defense and our identity,”
Dawkins said.
However, the final play of the first half foreshadowed what was to come as McGusty scored right at the buzzer off an Ingram turnover to give the Hurricanes a 30-29 edge.
The Knights’ cause was further hurt by being without two of their leaders for large portions of the game.
Forward Collin Smith, UCF’s top returning player, was limited to 17 minutes due to foul trouble. He ended up fouling out with 6:11 to play, having registered eight points and three rebounds.
When asked what he can learn from Tuesday’s game, Smith responded in a deadpan tone: “Try not to foul.” The Jacksonville native fouled out of five games last season.
Right as Smith was heading to the bench, Ingram and Miami guard Chris Lykes got into a confrontation that resulted in Ingram being assessed a flagrant 2 foul and getting ejected. Dawkins said he didn’t see what happened between the two players, but after the game he talked to his point guard, who apologized for his actions.
“I think he kind of got caught up in the moment,” Dawkins said of Ingram.
The Knights’ next game will be their first road test of the season. They will play the Illinois State Redbirds (2-0) on Sunday at 1 p.m.
UCF’s most recent visit to Illinois State was in March 2017, when the Knights defeated the top-seeded Redbirds 63-62 during the second round of the NIT.
“We’re going to be in a hostile environment for sure,” Dawkins said. “I was in that environment about two or three years ago and it was incredible. I don’t expect anything short of that again this year.”