UCF men’s basketball falls flat in Memphis again during 99-79 loss

By Neal Nachman
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Updated: January 18, 2015

A potential sword fight between the young UCF and Memphis men’s basketball squads looking to build some momentum into the heart of the American Athletic Conference schedule quickly turned into a swift chop down.

Fresh off a triple-overtime win Wednesday night, the Knights fell flat in Tennessee for the 12th time during a 99-79 loss at the FedEx Forum.

All of the fight UCF displayed earlier in the week against SMU and Tulane dissipated Saturday as Memphis’ physical frontcourt bullied Knights players in the paint.

UCF gave up a season-high 25 offensive rebounds and was outperformed in rebounds overall, 53-24. Sophomore center Justin McBride led the Knights with nine rebounds and junior guard Daiquan Walker collected a team-high 18 points.
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“You got young guys figuring out how to put back-to-back games together and I thought the hardest thing for us is that we could never get ourselves back in the game because we kept letting runs happen there,” UCF coach Donnie Jones said. “And I thought offensively we didn’t share the ball and we played selfish tonight as a team, and I think anytime you have those things happening, it’s hard to win.”

UCF (9-8 overall, 2-4 American) was hoping to get its first program victory against Memphis (11-6 overall, 4-2 American) on the road but instead added another loss to a long-suffering history. The Knights are 0-12 against the Tigers on the road and are 1-17 against the program overall.

The short turnaround following UCF’s marathon game Wednesday night didn’t play much of a factor in the team’s low energy output, according to the players.

“We all feel it but once you get between those lines, that all goes out the window,” Walker said regarding the team’s three-game schedule this week. “You still have to come play, so there’s no excuse. We were out there, and you gotta play through it.”

Walker added, “It wasn’t really about x’s and o’s tonight, it was just about who wanted it more and who is gonna come out and take it, and that’s what they did tonight.”

Memphis’ bigger and more athletic frontcourt certainly played a role, too. UCF’s 6-foot-9 transfer Shaheed Davis and 6-foot-11 Dylan Karell saw more reps in the game along with McBride and Stephon Blair to try to match the Tigers in the paint, but they had trouble consistently answering Memphis’ challenge.

Memphis forwards Shaq Goodwin and Nick King each scored 16 points off the bench.

“I just went down the line and kept trying guys hoping somebody could get us going and bring us some life and energy there,” Jones said. “I think Justin was in it for the most part — he had nine points and nine rebounds — but I thought he physically competed. But other than that, we just didn’t have anybody on the frontcourt that was rebounding balls, and that made it really hard for us.”

UCF dug an early hole that it was unable to climb out of by shooting 22 percent in the first half. B.J. Taylor, the Knights’ most consistent scorer, didn’t get his first field goal until 16:04 in the second half and finished with 17 points, with 13 of those coming from the free-throw line.

The road only gets harder from here as the Knights will travel to NCAA defending champion UConn Thursday.

“We have to get better because it’s gonna be a physical game on Thursday,” Jones said. “But more importantly, I think rest will be huge for us.”