UCF men's basketball team wins two straight

The UCF Knights are riding their first winning streak since before Christmas after smashing USF and then outlasting Houston to 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 by 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. Taylor hadn’t had a good game up to that point, scoring only three points and snagging four rebounds plus three assists. The Knights’ freshman had handled the ball more than any other UCF player, yet managed to sink just one shot of his previous seven attempts.

That faded into memory when he bounced the basketball across mid-court with 30 seconds left, held onto it until the clock had nearly ticked off, and sprinted through a crowd of Cougar defenders toward the basket. He lifted a layup into the air, and the ball fell, along with Houston.

Staphon Blair, Brandon Goodwin and Kasey Wilson helped lead the team with 14, 14 and 13 points, respectively. Wilson added six rebounds. Goodwin chipped in with seven assists — near a season-high for a Knights player.

Coming off the heels of a dominating 73-62 win over USF, the dramatic win 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.

The back-to-back wins did nothing to pull the Knights out of their deep hole in the American Athletic Conference standings, though they’re now just a win away from leapfrogging East Carolina. As it stands, the Knights are No. 9 of 11 teams in the AAC.

The Knights will have to hope to keep up their winning momentum through a change of venue, when they tip off at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, at Tulane (14-10, 5-7). The last time the two teams played, on Jan. 14, the Knights needed triple overtime to win 103-100. They didn’t win another game for nearly a month.

The game will be broadcast live on ESPN3.