UCF’s desires of playing its best basketball at the end of the season are out the window. Instead, the Knights will limp to next week’s Big 12 tournament on a three-game losing streak and at increasing risk of a seemingly unthinkable collapse.
Honor Huff lit up the Knights for the second time in less than a month, scoring a game-high 24 points as West Virginia (18-13, 9-9 Big 12) completed a home-and-home sweep with a 77-62 win Friday, March 6, at WVU Coliseum in Morgantown, W. Va.
Riley Kugel paced UCF (20-10, 9-9) with 16 points. Themus Fulks and Jordan Burks had 14 points as the team shot 38.7% from the field against West Virginia’s top-10 nationally ranked defense.
According to ESPN, UCF entered the night with 86% odds of receiving an at-large NCAA Tournament bid in the model consensus. However, it squandered a pair of chances at home to guarantee a winning record in conference play against two of the Big 12’s weaker teams, Baylor and Oklahoma State.
No Big 12 team has missed the NCAA Tournament with a league record over .500 since 2009.
Now, the Knights could face the undesirable task of playing a first-round conference tournament game on Tuesday, March 10, in Kansas City, Mo. They alternated three-game winning and losing streaks across their final 12 contests.
Here are three takeaways from a deflating end to what had been a pleasantly surprising regular season.
West Virginia starts unusually fast to build double-digit lead
The nation’s 314th-ranked scoring offense, West Virginia particularly struggles early in ballgames. Among Big 12 programs, the Mountaineers are dead last in points inside the first five (7.1 per game) and 10 (14.7) minutes.
They sped up the pace and got into rhythm out of the gate, going on a 9-0 run to build a 22-10 lead just over the midway point of the first half.
West Virginia knocked down five 3-point field goals in the opening 20 minutes, and consistently chased UCF off the line. The Knights had six attempts from long range, making just one.
Eighteen of the Knights’ 23 points prior to halftime came inside the paint.
Jamichael Stillwell starts, limited to 22 minutes with foul trouble
Senior forward Jamichael Stillwell missed the Valentine’s Day meeting with the Mountaineers, in which UCF blew a 14-point lead, due to injury.
He started this time, despite being listed as a game-time decision on the Big 12’s final availability report, but played just 22 minutes as he found repeatedly himself in foul trouble.
Stillwell picked up two in the first half, and his third just 69 seconds after the intermission. Head coach Johnny Dawkins opted to leave the 6-foot-8, 245-pounder on the floor, but Stillwell was called for a charge at the 13:08 mark as UCF trailed 42-36.
By the time Stillwell returned, just over four minutes later, the Knights’ deficit ballooned to 15. He fouled out with 4:00 left while pursuing an offensive rebound.
Stillwell had the team’s only plus-minus rating (+1) on the night.
Persistent problems plague UCF in regular-season finale
Perhaps a bigger issue for the Knights of late than the volume of fouls, particularly for their bigs, is their propensity of hacking 3-point shooters. It cost them dearly against Baylor, allowing Obi Agbim to sink the go-ahead free throw with 1.3 seconds left, and it swung momentum back in the Mountaineers’ favor on Friday.
Huff drew contact from both Burks and Kugel in just over two minutes, and then hit all six ensuing free throws to turn a four-point lead into a 12-point advantage. In between, he buried a catch-and-shoot 3 before Fulks could close out, keeping UCF’s defenders honest and overly aggressive.
During its current three-game slide, the Knights are shooting 32.1% from 3-point range. Even more troubling are their 19 missed free throws over the last two contests — going just 11 of 18 at the charity stripe in Morgantown.
UCF also topped double digits in turnovers for the 21st time this season, an even 10 after committing 13 last time out against West Virginia.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF basketball closes regular season with 3rd straight loss
Reporting by Chris Boyle, Daytona Beach News-Journal / The Daytona Beach News-Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
