Marcus Jordan continued his recent string of solid play, scoring a game-high 19 points and guiding the UCF Men’s Basketball team to a 60-53 victory in the team’s Conference-USA opener Wednesday night at the UCF Arena.
Jordan has averaged nearly 20 points per game over the last six contests for the Knights (11-3), who are 5-1 in that stretch.
UCF, who was coming off a four-day layoff, held a lead for nearly the entire game against Tulane.
The Green Wave (12-3) currently boast the second best record in C-USA after getting off to a 9-0 start this year, but were not able to figure out a lock down UCF defense. Tulane shot 39 percent from the field in the game and 25 percent from the three-point line, and weren’t able to get anything going in the paint.
Tulane only shot six foul shots, while the Knights went eight-of-13 from the charity stripe.
The Knights were without head coach Donnie Jones, who is serving a three-game school-mandated suspension after UCF got in trouble by the NCAA for recruiting violations earlier this year. Associate Head Coach Shawn Finney is filling in for Jones during his absence.
“Coach Jones really prepared this team to play without any coaching,” Finney said in a post game press conference from UCFAthletics.com. “The guys came out and executed the game plan. They were prepared and really came out and played hard, played together and played smart.”
Despite Coach Jones’ absence, UCF played really solid basketball. The Knights outrebounded Tulane 40-29 in the game, led by junior Keith Clanton’s 12 boards. Clanton also had eight points and five blocks Wednesday night.
A.J. Rompza, who is in his second game back after sitting out 12 games due to a NCAA-imposed suspension, contributed 11 points, five steals and four assists.
Senior P.J. Gaynor chipped in with eight points and eight rebounds.
The Green Wave were led by Jordan Callahan’s 18 points and seven boards.
UCF will return to action Saturday and continue their league slate on the road against East Carolina Saturday at 5 p.m.
