Dawkins trying to be patient regarding Knights’ progress
The expectations for the UCF Knights entering this season weren’t lofty, not with the team having to replace more than half of its roster that earned an NCAA Tournament bid in 2019.
So perhaps it’s not surprising to some that UCF, despite showing a lot of moxie, currently sits at 2-5 and in eighth place in the American Athletic Conference near the midpoint of league play.
But outside expectations be damned; the Knights have their own set of expectations, which definitely forecast them starting out better than their current record. However, UCF coach Johnny Dawkins understands just how different this team is compared to some of his previous squads and has adapted accordingly.
“I’m not a very patient guy in certain situations, and I know I have to be with this group,” he said in a radio interview Monday. “As much as I want to see it happen immediately, these guys are going to develop and they are going to get there in their own time. A season is like a lifetime, and
when they figure it all out isn’t necessarily when we want them to figure it out.
“We haven’t started playing our best basketball in conference yet, and I’m just waiting for that to click because I know it’s there.”
Despite the setbacks, the Knights have continued to battle in every game, including Saturday’s 87-79 loss at Wichita State.
UCF trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half and, by the latter stages, was missing a handful of key players either due to injury or foul trouble. Still, it found a way to get within four in the final minutes before the Shockers pulled away.
“It goes to show you that we fight and we’re not going to stand down against anybody, whether it’s Wichita, Memphis [or] Houston,” guard Ceasar DeJesus said Tuesday.
The Knights have already come up short against two of those
squads. They will get their first crack at Memphis (14-5, 3-3) at home Wednesday. Tipoff is 7 p.m. and the game will air on ESPNU.
The Tigers were considered a top-15 team entering the year, buoyed by the presence of projected top NBA draft prospect James Wiseman. However, this season has certainly not gone according to plan.
In December, Wiseman announced he was leaving Memphis to focus on the draft. Although the Tigers were able to withstand his departure for the rest of the month, they are just 2-4 since the start of 2020.
On Jan. 22, they suffered one of the worst losses in program history, falling 80-40 to Tulsa. Three days later, the Tigers blew an 11-point lead and didn’t score in the final six minutes at home versus SMU, resulting in a 74-70 defeat.
Memphis still has two likely 2020 draft picks in freshman forwards Precious Achiuwa and D.J. Jeffries. The pair are combining to average about 26 points and 13 rebounds per game against AAC competition.
“They are going to play quick offense; they want to keep up a certain pace,” Dawkins said. “We have to play with a lot of poise. We have to come down and understand what we want to get on each possession, and we can’t let them dictate the tempo of the game.”
Remembering Kobe
As the world continues to mourn the death of Kobe Bryant, the Knights held a team meeting this week to share stories and talk about the basketball legend.
Dawkins worked with Bryant while serving as the director of player development for the U.S. Olympic basketball team from 2006-08. He recalled one particular workout during which he served up more than 1,000 shots to Bryant over the span of 3 1⁄2 hours.
“Forty-five minutes left in the workout, I couldn’t pass any more basketballs, and he was still wanting to shoot,” Dawkins said. “At that time in his career, he was thought of as the best player in the world.
“He always worked as if he was still trying to make it.”
Bryant was someone whom many of the young men Dawkins coaches today tried to emulate when they were kids. DeJesus is one of them and said repeatedly Tuesday the loss of Bryant is devastating.
“It’s Kobe Bryant, that’s really it,” DeJesus said. “He’s a dude I grew up watching [for] a huge part of my childhood. … It’s just a piece of your childhood taken away, so it’s just devastating.”
Injury updates
Dawkins said guard Dre Fuller Jr. and forward Ibrahim Famouke Doumbia “have an opportunity to be able to contribute” versus Memphis. Fuller has missed the past four games due to a groin injury, while Doumbia was too sick to make the trip to Wichita.