Saturday night, UCF took on Southern Mississippi (21-7 overall, 9-5 conference) in Conference-USA battle. After winning their last 3 out of 4 games, the Knights (18-9 overall, 5-9 conference) had the right mindset coming into a game against the number one team in the conference.
Marcus Jordan carried the Knights to victory with 20 points, grabbing 6 rebounds and going 4 for 4 from the line. A.J Tyler added 14 points to the team’s overall 65 points.
While Southern Miss shot a buzzer-beater to put the Golden Eagles up by 8 before the half, the Knights came back into the second quarter ready to battle it out one more time.
It all came down to the last minute of the game when Marcus Jordan passed the ball to A.J. Rompza. With just 6 seconds left on the clock, Rompza knocked down a 3-point buzzer-beater, giving the Knights victory over conference leading Southern Mississippi, 65-64.
Tonight was all too familiar for UCF. Thinking back to just a few weeks ago, UCF played Memphis, another conference contender. The game came down to the last second, when Memphis’ Antonio Barton shot a 3-point buzzer-beater to defeat the Knights. But tonight, it was the Rompza who pushed the Knights to victory in another close game.
“It was nice to finally come out on the other end of that for the first time,” said UCF head coach Donnie Jones. “It was a big shot by A.J. Rompza, but the thing that I was the most proud of was the way our guys fought. We had a couple of times there when we could have tucked our heads and they made some great runs and that’s a terrific basketball team that we just played, and the shot went in for us.’’
For Southern Miss, it was R.L Horton and Maurice Bolden who combined for almost half of the Golden Eagles total points. The pair shot 50% from the field, with Bolden and Gary Flowers managing to pull down 6 rebounds.
The Knights plan to keep their post-season hopes alive Wednesday night playing conference rival, SMU, in their last home game of the season.
