Knights, Tars on downward streaks

Four days after enduring their most heartbreaking loss of the season, the Knights (9-12, 1-9) suffered their eighth straight loss in American Athletic Conference play on Feb. 9, losing to UConn 75-55.

The loss, the Knights’ ninth against an AAC foe, mathematically eliminated the possibility of the men’s basketball team finishing with a winning record in conference play.

The NFL lineman-sized freshman center Justin McBride came off the bench to score 13 points and snag a block and three rebounds in just 13 minutes, while star Isaiah Sykes shot 17 points and grabbed five assists and five rebounds.

And again shooting percentage would be the theme of a Knights loss, as they were outshot by the Huskies 47.6 percent to 39.2 percent. But the Knights put up a fight. Despite the Huskies leading by 19 points to start the second half, the Knights would at one point cut the scoring gap to eight with about seven minutes to play before the Huskies pulled away again.

“It’s hard to get down that big in the first half and we just continue to have a hard time guarding the basketball,” UCF head coach Donnie Jones told UCFKnights.com after the game.

The game would be a massive departure from the Knights’ one-point overtime loss to USF just a few days earlier. In that game, despite occasional lulls in shooting, the Knights would continuously battle for the lead in the last 10 minutes of the game, shooting 60 percent — near a season high — in the process.

In a stacked conference in which only three teams — including UCF — have overall losing records, the Knights have a tough road ahead of them. They traveled to face Memphis (18-5, 7-3) at press time Wednesday. At 1:30 p.m. Saturday they’ll take a shot at the Bulls (12-12, 3-8) again, this time on USF’s home court. Thankfully for the Knights, four of their final six games are against the worst teams in the conference. Unthankfully for the Knights, the other two are against No. 7 Cincinnati and the only team in the conference to hand the AAC leader a loss, SMU.

Rollins

The Tars men’s basketball team is having trouble clawing its way out of the bottom of the Sunshine State Conference heading into the final few weeks of the regular season. They fell 57-66 to Eckerd on Feb. 8, dropping their record to 10-11 overall and 4-7 in the conference.

The Tars had a trio of players shooting in the double digits, with Mitch Woods leading the way with 15 points, two rebounds and four assists.

The loss was the second this year against Eckerd, which is narrowly ahead of the Tars with a 13-9 overall record and 5-5 in the SSC.

The Tars will be home all week, hosting Florida Tech at press time Wednesday, then Nova Southeastern at 4 p.m. Saturday and Lynn at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 19. With three wins they could even up their conference record before hitting the road for two games to finish off the regular season.

Meanwhile Rollins’ women’s team is near the top of the SSC after edging Eckerd 69-64 on Feb. 8. Sarah Taylor’s 17 points and 10 rebounds led the team in that one.

The lady Tars have five wins in their last six conference games, though they’ve suffered their two most recent losses against the two teams topping them in the SSC. The Tars (19-4, 8-3) played Florida Tech at press time Wednesday. They’ll host Nova Southeastern at 2 p.m. Saturday and then Lynn at 5:30 p.m. Feb. 19.