ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF Knights got the victory over their bitter rival USF 75-64 after a fantastic shooting performance from the entire team on Wednesday night.
“It feels good. I think that we’ve been practicing hard and we had a good gameplan, so we executed through the end and just got the win,” sophomore guard Adonys Henriquez said.
The Knights struggled to get their first couple of baskets of the game, scoring just 2 of their first six shots from the field. However, once UCF’s offense rounded into form, the team ended up with one of the best shooting nights of the season.
“[UCF] is very skilled. Their guards do a good job of finding each other when they are open and they knock down shots,” USF Head Coach Orlando Antigua said.
Redshirt junior Matt Williams led the charge for the Knights with all but one of his 13 points coming from long range. Williams is a 35.5 percent shooter from three-point range this season and his 4 makes from beyond the arc count as a season-high for him.
The Knights found themselves holding a commanding 14-point lead with 6 minutes remaining in the first half, but that’s when the torrid shooting came to a close though as UCF went on a nearly 3 minute scoring drought. The drought gave the Bulls the opportunity to close the gap and they capitalized with a 16-5 run going into halftime, leaving UCF up by just three points against their bitter rival from Tampa.
“I talked to our team at halftime and the biggest thing I told those guys was to stop looking at the scoreboard,” Head Coach Donnie Jones said. “You’re getting caught up in that right now, we are up 3 at half even though we didn’t finish well. In the second half, it’ll be about these next 20 minutes.”
The Bulls’ senior center Jaleel Cousins, young brother of Demarcus Cousins of the Sacramento Kings, had a strong outing off the bench against UCF’s big men. Cousins recorded 19 points and 13 rebounds in 28 minutes and kept USF in the game with his strength in the paint.
Sophomore guard Adonys Henriquez took over the game coming out of halftime, knocking down 13 of his 20 points in the second half. The sophomore added 6 rebounds and 2 assists to his stat line as well as he helped the Knights pull away from the Bulls late in the second half.
UCF’s next game will be a tough one as the team heads to Dallas to take on the undefeated SMU Mustangs and their head coach Larry Brown this Sunday.
