UCF basketball gets back into the game

The UCF Knights are riding their first winning streak since before Christmas after smashing USF and then outlasting Houston two take two straight. And the Knights (11-13, 4-9) needed both of them — and a lot more — to salvage their season.

The tension couldn't have been higher in the Houston game, which the Knights turned into a nail-biter when they couldn't pull away more than two points from the Cougars for the final 11 minutes of the game. But a buzzer-beating layup by B.J. Taylor made that 56-54 win a reality.

Coming off the heels of a dominating 73-62 win over USF, it was a streak-maker that the Knights badly needed.

After starting their season with one of the team’s longest season-opening winning streaks of all time, the UCF Knights were in the middle of their worst losing streak since the men’s basketball team joined the American Athletic Conference.

That included an unlikely 67-50 bamboozling blowout Feb. 7 at the hands of East Carolina, which has one of the worst overall records in the conference. The Pirates are now one game closer to a winning record, thanks to the Knights.

The score was tied with six minutes left in the first half of the game. The Knights, despite typically poor shooting, had kept up with the Pirates and actually held the lead multiple times in the first period.

The second half escalated from a moderate Pirates lead into a blowout that at one point stretched 21 points wide. The Knights’ penultimate shot to fall was a slam-dunk by starting guard Brandon Goodwin that brought the score within a marginally less-gaping 18 points. The Knights would get no closer to the Pirates before the clock struck zero.

Three Knights would crack double-digit scores, and three more would snag at least seven rebounds each on the night. Staphon Blair led the team with 12 points and seven rebounds. He also sank 67 percent of his shots, putting him in rare company alongside Goodwin as the only two Knights to find the net more than twice for every five times they tossed up the ball.

The Knights’ loss dropped them below East Carolina. But with the AAC currently featuring three teams that have won 20 percent or less of their conference games, they’re still not at the bottom, with their six-game free-fall cushioned by Houston (9-14, 1-10) and USF (7-18, 1-11).

“Our kids have to keep battling,” head coach Donnie Jones told UCFKnights.com after the game. “We just can’t beat ourselves up. We have to regroup and get ready.”

The Knights are in New Orleans to face Tulane (14-10, 5-7) at 7 p.m. Feb. 19. They return home for a 2 p.m. Feb. 22 showdown against Memphis (15-10, 7-5).