Hitting boards tops Knights’ agenda
After Missouri loss, Grambling should pose less of a task
The UCF men’s basketball team spent this week learning and studying. That is what finals week entails, after all.
But the Knights’ learning wasn’t confined to the classroom. This week has also been about correcting what went wrong Sunday at Missouri.
UCF held a 3-point lead over the Tigers with less than a minute to play in regulation, but multiple turnovers combined with a twisting fall-away 3-pointer at the buzzer by Missouri’s Jordan Geist to send the game into overtime. There the Knights were held scoreless for the final 3:27 and ended up losing 64-62.
Five days off between games left the Knights plenty of time to stew but also to improve where they have faltered. And that work, according to players and coach Johnny Dawkins, has centered around rebounding.
“I just felt like we didn’t rebound, myself included,” said Collin Smith, who gathered four rebounds in 28 minutes Sunday. “We didn’t really rebound well and we just did not crash the offensive boards. [The Tigers] beat us in every stat that counts — secondchance points, rebounds, loose balls, 50-50 balls. We just kind of beat ourselves. UCF beating UCF.”
Said guard Aubrey Dawkins: “We play good defense for 20 seconds, whatever it may be, and we can’t stop once the shot goes up. We have to get that rebound, secure that ball, and then we can go on to the next. That’s really what it is in my book.”
Missouri held a 17-7 edge in offensive rebounds, which translated into a 16-7 advantage for the Tigers in second-chance points.
Despite a lengthy cast — including Smith, Dawkins, Tacko Fall and Chad Brown — crashing the glass has been an issue for the Knights, who reside among the middle of the AAC pack in rebounding margin and have allowed 25 offensive boards more than they have recorded.
The highest impact offensive rebound the Knights have given up occurred during their only other loss this season, an 80-79 heartbreaker on Nov. 11 at home during which the Florida Atlantic Owls followed up a missed shot with a buzzer-beating layup.
“You can defend as well as you want, but if you give up second- and third-shot attempts, that just diminishes your defensive ability,” coach Johnny Dawkins said.
Thus UCF, mere seconds from being 8-0, sits at 6-2 and will be looking to rebound, literally and figuratively, at 1 p.m. Saturday versus Grambling State at CFE Arena.
This set of Tigers is 4-4 and has just one victory against a Division I team thus far — a six-point win at Niagara last month. However, they faced some highlevel competition, including 2018 Final Four darling Loyola-Chicago. The Tigers lost that meeting by 16 and also fell by 21 at LSU last week.
Grambling State averages only six 3-point makes per game, but when they do fire off from long range, they are among the nation’s best; the Tigers are shooting 43.2 percent above the arc, which is the sixth-best rate in Division I.
“Any team that shoots that well always has a shooter’s chance of beating anybody in the country,” coach Dawkins said.
And the extra attention the Knights paid to rebounding will be necessary against a Tigers team that ranks among the top 25 in defensive rebounding.
“We have a few guys out there that are grabbing rebounds,” coach Dawkins said, “but we need more guys and more of a collective effort.”
In his first month of college basketball following more than two years out of action due to transferring and injury, junior Aubrey Dawkins is averaging 16.1 points per game — tied with senior guard B.J. Taylor for the team high and ninth-best in the American. Dawkins has also made 89 percent of his free throws this season and has hit 44 percent of his 3-point attempts during the past four games. In the process, he has become the first Knight in the program’s Division I era to register double-digit points in each of the team’s first eight games.
Dawkins said he feels “fine” with where he is at this point in his comeback season and is steadily growing more comfortable with each passing game.
“I know I put in the work and I’m not really worried about misses and makes,” he said. “I know whatever I work for, it’ll happen for me.”