ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF Knights struggled from the free throw line and turned the ball over 18 times in the loss to the Cincinnati Bearcats 69-51.
“In the first half we didn’t, we stayed in the rhythm and we moved the ball,” UCF Head Coach Donnie Jones said. “We got good shots and we didn’t beat ourselves by turning the ball over, but in the second half we got rattled for whatever reason. We couldn’t get anything going from free throws to making a shot and they continued to stay in a rhythm which built a lead that was hard to come back from.”
UCF has now dropped five of their last six games which leaves them in 8th place in the American Athletic Conference. The Knights leaned heavily on the performances of guard Matt Williams and forward AJ Davis for their scoring against the Bearcats. Williams scored a career-high 24 points while Davis added 16 of his own which collectively accounted for just under 80 percent of the Knights scoring in the game.
“My teammates, they know I can shoot, so they just motivate me,” Williams said. “I’d say that most of it just came from the confidence from my teammates and the rest was preparation.”
The loss of Adonys Henriquez has also played a major role in the team’s struggles on offense as the sophomore is the team’s second leading scorer. Without Henriquez, the Knight have shot a miserable 38.1 percent from the field and his replacement Tanksley Efianayi scored just one point on Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, the Bearcats spread the ball around rather well with four members of their starting five registering in the double digits. The Knights were able to slow down the Bearcats lead-scorer Troy Caupain who made just 1 of his 11 shots, but sophomore forward Gary Clark and senior guard Farad Cobb were able to make up for his poor performance.
Clark, in particular, was a do-it-all forward for the Bearcats as he filled up the stat sheet with 11 points, 8 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks. The sophomore has been a revelation for the University of Cincinnati this season and will play a big factor in just how well the team fares in the tournament.
The Bearcats, as a whole, out-rebounded the Knights 43 to 30 and had a staggering 16 offensive boards.
“We just have to do a better job of matching up on rebounding,” Davis said. “I think we get too caught up in just watching our bigs. Tacko is a big body, Justin is a big body and we sometimes just expect them to grab every board.”
UCF’s next contest comes against Houston who upset #12 SMU just eight days ago and have won three of their last four games.
The University of Houston’s dynamic scoring duo of Devonta Pollard and Damyean Dotson have helped lead the Cougars to the second highest scoring offense in the AAC. UCF will need to have solved some of their recurring issues in order to keep it close with yet another tough AAC team.
