Knights still strong after UConn loss

UCF men's basketball

The UConn Huskies continued to be a thorn in UCF’s side as they won 64-49 when UCF traveled to a freezing Connecticut on Sunday.

The Huskies leapt out to a 35-18 lead by halftime before the Knights began slowly reeling them in, but in the end the gap would be too big to close. B.J. Taylor’s return to the court produced 18 points in the losing effort, with Matt Williams chipping in 11 points and seven rebounds in 39 minutes on the court.

The big change for the Knights was 7-foot 6-inch center Tacko Fall, who was limited heavily by the Huskies, going from one of the Knights’ top scorers to scoring zero points and picking up just three rebounds in the loss. Backup center Chad Brown threw down 4 points and grabbed eight rebounds in 18 minutes of floor time.

Fall had been among UCF’s top scorers before the holiday break. In his past two games he’s scored a combined 3 points. Meanwhile Taylor has seen a resurgence at point guard after being injured most of last season. He scored 19 points in UCF’s defense-heavy 48-45 win over East Carolina on Jan. 3.

Even with the recent loss, the Knights remain near the top of the American Athletic Conference with a 12-4 overall record and 3-1 in AAC play. Only two teams remain undefeated in the conference: SMU and No. 22 Cincinnati.

The Knights are only a game behind those juggernauts as they continue on with conference play. They’ll have a few days off before they host Houston (12-4, 3-1) which has an identical record to the Knights. That game tips off at 4 p.m. Saturday. The USF Bulls (6-8, 0-3) come to town next, with a 7 p.m. Tuesday start time.

UCF women’s basketball

The lady Knights started conference play on a three-game losing streak, dropping to 10-6 overall and 0-3 in the AAC after falling to No. 1 UConn, Cincinnati and Memphis in less than a week. The last two games were lost by a margin of 6 points or less.

That record has plummeted them to the bottom of the AAC standings.

Lucky for the Knights, their only meeting with UConn this season is done. They’ll face the AAC’s other ranked team, USF, in mid-February. In the meantime they’ll travel to East Carolina for a 7 p.m. Jan. 18 tipoff. The Pirates are 10-6 overall with a 1-2 conference record.