Orlando, Fla. – With a tremendous second-half comeback, the UCF Knights beat the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats in overtime to move to 6-4.
“What an emotional roller-coaster tonight’s win was,” said UCF Head Coach Donnie Jones. “We started out, obviously, not very good and I give Bethune-Cookman credit for that, but I was really proud of how the guys fought back.”
UCF got off to a slow start and made some immediate substitutions, but couldn’t find the right formula to stop the wildcats and the Knights began playing catch-up. BCU’s Mario Moody was on fire, hitting 3-4 three-pointers and scored 17 points in the first-half.
“I can’t even tell you any changes I made, it was so many changes going on,” said Jones. “I was living in the moment…it was one of those undersized teams that was playing unbelievable tonight. And we just had to find a way to match their intensity with whoever we could put out there.”
BCU shot lights out from the field with a blistering 61.5 percentage in the first-half, but towards the end of the half, the Knights seemed to find their shot after back-to-back three-pointers by senior guard Daiquan Walker and sophomore guard Adonys Henriquez.
UCF made some line-up changes to start the second-half by starting Walker in place of freshman guard Chance McSpadden and Matt Williams into the small-forward positon, which slid red-shirt sophomore A.J Davis into the power-forward position and senior Shaheed Davis to the center positon.
That line-up worked for UCF as they started the half with an 18-4 run and took the lead with 17:20 remaining in the second-half.
“They got up on us and we didn’t give up,” said Daiquan Walker. “We came out in the second-half, coach got on us and we all knew what we had to do…we came out and press, brought the intensity up, and it was just a team effort at that point.”
The Knights took a 15-point lead with 8:23 remaining in the second half, but the Wildcats made a comeback and brought the game to within two points with 0.28 minutes remaining in the game and eventually tied the game and took the Knights into overtime.
Bethune-cookman’s, Jordan Potts, hit one of his seven three-point field goals to send the game into overtime.
“Because I had a chance to finish out the game…I was mad, so I kind of like put my head down,” said Walker. “Not like I was giving up, but coach came up to me and told me ‘don’t put your head down, keep your head up.’ That kind of got me focus and ready to go into overtime. So I knew we were going to win at that point.”
UCF was able to maintain their composure and claim their victory.
“Coming off the lost from Detroit, this was an important game for us,” said Jones. “Our guys locked in, I thought in the second half and we gutted it out.”
The Knights’ next game will be at home against George Washington on December 29, at 7pm.
