By Kenneth Cross
ORLANDO, Fla. – The UCF Knights have been a tough out in Year One of Big 12 play, but an old habit showed up in Wednesday evening’s 77-69 loss to Baylor. Once again, UCF couldn’t close as they led for 31 minutes. Baylor held the Knights to 7-of-16 from the floor where they were only 3-of-10 from three while committing four turnovers in the last eight minutes.
“I thought we had a shot at the end and they closed the ball game out better than we did,” said Knights coach Johnny Dawkins. “Coming down the stretch, it is really anybody’s ball game and I thought they made more plays than we did to close the game.”
The old nemesis showed once again as UCF couldn’t close at Cincinnati last Saturday or in an earlier home game against BYU.
“We have to get better at ending the game,” Dawkins explained. “Executing, as I mentioned before, we have guys that haven’t been in those positions this year. We have guys that are in there now, and they haven’t been in those positions this year.”
Dawkins has changed his lineups and rotations as nine players average double figures in minutes while 10 different players have starts this season.
“They are learning this as we go through it and we are learning together,” noted Dawkins. “This game coming down the stretch was better than our last game vs. Cincy coming down the stretch, so I see improvement.”
Baylor took control with a 12-2 run in which the Bears grabbed a 65-58 lead when Ja’Kobe Walter hit a three.
The Knights shot 54 percent from the floor and made 14-of-27 threes as Johnson checked in with five triples and Marchelus Avery netted four.
Offense wasn’t really our issue,” said Dawkins. “We have to defend better, taking away the three-point line which is something we talked about doing and we have to keep them off the line which is something we talked about doing. In those areas, we fell short.”
Although the Knights could not overcome Baylor, Avery, and Antwann Jones each made threes to cut the Bears’ lead back to 68-64. Sellers hit a triple behind these as UCF showed some ability to work to overcome the deficit.
“It just comes down to our execution at the end of the game,” said Johnson. “You know we have to be better offensively, executing, and take more focus to our defense. Too many miscues, too many offensive rebounds, and too many late threes at the end of the game.”