UCF Knights try to brush off losing streak

UCF

A.J. Davis’ last second shot at heroism was ruled a tenth of a second too late as the Knights fell by 62-60 to the Temple Owls on Saturday afternoon.

Justin McBride, recently promoted to starting center after losing the position to giant freshman Tacko Fall early in the season, has since seen his shooting drop off. After leading the team in scoring for several games in late January in short stints off the bench, McBride scored just five points as a starter against Temple. In that same game Fall landed 10 points and seven rebounds in just 18 minutes on the floor.

The narrow loss to Temple represented the Knights’ best shot at beating a conference leader all season. They lost to American Athletic Conference leader No. 16 SMU by 88-73 in their only scheduled meeting this season.

When the Knights hosted Cincinnati (17-7, 7-4) Tuesday they faced one of their toughest challenges of the season so far. It didn’t go well, as turnovers piled up and caused the Knights, despite holding the Bearcats to only 36.5 percent shooting, to lose in a 69-51 landslide. Matt Williams’ career-high 24-point shooting night wouldn’t be enough.

Having pushed 11 games deep into conference play, the Knights, clinging to 11-11 overall and having just fallen to 5-6 in the AAC, still don’t have a win against an AAC foe that possesses a winning conference record. Their lone conference wins coming against the AAC’s weakest teams hasn’t hurt them as badly as it could have, since most of the Knights’ conference schedule has been against AAC’s three worst teams.

It’s a tough road ahead in conference play for the Knights coming up. They’ll travel to face Houston (16-7, 6-5) at 3 p.m. Saturday, televised on ESPNews, then turn around to visit Memphis (14-9, 5-5) at 7 p.m. Wednesday, televised on ESPNU.

After that, time grows short for the Knights to upright their season before brackets are decided.

Rollins

The Tars (16-6, 8-3) got revenge on Eckerd and helped boost their Sunshine State Conference credibility in a swing that has given them five straight wins.

Against No. 16 Eckerd (18-5, 9-3) the Tars needed overtime to avenge a 67-62 loss on Dec. 12, but they pulled it off despite leading the game for less than a minute in total. Deion Clark’s final two free throws would be the nails in Eckerd’s coffin with an 82-79 score.

For the Tars, coming up they face more conference opponents including hosting Florida Tech (12-11, 4-8) at 4 p.m. Saturday, and hosting Barry (17-3, 9-2) at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The postseason awaits in March.

Winter Park

After battling their way into the regional basketball championship with a dominating pair of wins in district play, the Winter Park Wildcats are set for a quarterfinal showdown on their home court against Apopka.

In the span of two games in the district tournament the Wildcats showed they could win a high-scoring blowout or a defensive slugfest, trouncing University 77-57 then edging Timber Creek in a 47-44 nail-biter.

A suffocating Wildcat defense helped hand them the win in the championship, holding Timber Creek’s shooters to single digits for all but one of them, and only five successful three-pointers in the game.

Tonight at 7 p.m. the Wildcats (18-9) will host Apopka (13-13), which needed overtime to make it out of the first round of districts and fell to Evans in the championship.

Facing a tough road traveling every game through the playoffs, the lady Wildcats (23-6) have managed to win anyway, with a convincing 51-41 victory over Wekiva in the quarterfinal, and a 46-41 nail-biter over host Colonial (23-5) in the semis.

That most recent win came against the same Colonial team that had beaten the Wildcats in the district championship a week before. Madelin Lang helped seal the win with 8 points in the fourth quarter.

With a string of wins under their belts after falling in the district championship game, the Wildcats travel to Seminole (24-5) for a 7 p.m. tipoff this Friday. The Seminoles have a pair of narrow wins in the regional playoffs so far, needing overtime to win in the regional semifinal.

Edgewater

After winning their district championship the lady Eagles (20-5) have continued a dominant run through the playoffs, beating Mainland 55-44 in the regional quarterfinal, then shocking New Smyrna Beach (25-4) 41-40 in the semifinal Tuesday night.

The Eagles play host in the regional final against Armwood (19-3) at 7 p.m. Friday.