Knights win in dramatic fashion
For the second straight game, the UCF men’s basketball team trailed by double digits in the second half before mounting a comeback win over an American Athletic Conference opponent.
The Knights, who trailed by 13 with 10 minutes left, won 68-66 over Tulane on Saturday inside Addition Financial Arena thanks to the sharpshooting of true freshman Darius Johnson and Darin Green Jr. along with the aggressive play of Cheikh Mbacke Diong.
Making his second start with the Knights, Johnson led the team with 17 points on 3-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc in addition to making 6 of 7 from the free-throw line.
“He’s terrific and he’s only going to keep getting better,” Knights coach Johnny Dawkins said about Johnson. “He’s going to be a good guard for us for a long time. He hasn’t played like a freshman.”
The Knights needed overtime Tuesday night at East Carolina to win 92-85 in a game in which they trailed by 20 in the second half.
On Saturday, the Green Wave led 55-42 at the 10:01 mark of the second half before UCF used a 14-2 run from the 10-minute mark to the 6-minute mark of the second half.
The two teams went back and forth in the final minutes before Diong grabbed a critical offensive board and slammed the ball back in the hoop with 49 seconds left, giving UCF a 65-63 lead. Following two turnovers in the final 36 seconds of the game, Tulane was forced to foul as Johnson sank two free throws, giving UCF a 68-63 lead.
Tulane’s Jalen Cook sank a half-court shot in the closing seconds to pull the Green Wave within 2 as time expired.
“I think their belief,” Dawkins said when asked what the key was for his team to come back. “I think they really believed that they’ve done it before, so just having the belief and the confidence that you can do it.”
Diong, who transferred from UNLV over the summer, made a big difference in the paint for UCF, scoring 16 to go with 10 rebounds, 6 of which were offensive boards.
While he’s come close previously this season, Saturday’s performance was Diong’s first double-double of the year.
“I thought that Mbacke’s best performance for us and we needed it the most,” Dawkins said. “[Tulane] was playing terrific, had a double-digit lead, and I thought he just kept making play after play for us.”
The Green Wave opened the second half with a 9-1 scoring run to retake the lead, 37-32 three minutes into the half.
Tulane continued to score using a 7-0 run to go up 51-40 at the 11:46 mark. The Green Wave shot 83% in the opening 8 minutes of the second half after shooting 34% in the first half. UCF and Tulane struggled shooting in the first half, hitting just 35% and 34% of their shots from the field, respectively. The Knights, however, hit 8 of 17 from beyond the arc while the Green Wave shot 14% on 3-pointers.
Johnson, Mahan and Walker hit three straight 3-point baskets to give UCF its largest lead of the opening half at 28-20 with 3:47 remaining. Tulane then closed out the first half on an 8-3 scoring run, but the Knights led 31-28 at halftime.