University of Central Florida (2-1, 0-0)
Imperial Arena, Paradise Island Bahamas
Tipoff Thursday at 2pm on Versus
The first game of the first ever Battle 4 Atlantis tournament pits the UCF Knights against the Cougars on Thanksgiving Day. I'm probably going to have to record this game because my extended family is gonna elect to watch the Packers-Lions game over the first round of some new college basketball tournament.
When it was announced that this would be our first game of the tournament, I knew exactly two things about the UCF Knights. The first is that one of Michael Jordan's sons, Marcus Jordan, is on the team. The other piece of information I drew upon was that I remembered them being nationally ranked last year, but they didn't make it to the Big Dance. I looked at last years results and sure enough this was in fact the case. The Knights started last year by winning 14 straight games (including wins over UF and Miami) and earning a national ranking, before they collapsed and lost 8 straight. They finished the year 19-11 and made it to the semi-finals if the CBI (the postseason tourney we played in a few years ago).
From what little I've been able to gather about the Knights, they are balanced offensively and are very athletic. Macus Jordan and forward Keith Clanton lead the team in points with about 16 per game apiece. Three other players also average double figures this year. Just by watching video on the team you can see the athleticism. They're high flying, dunk a lot and score in transition. However, they're team field goal percentage this year is a paltry .396% (the Cougars have shot .497 this year).
The Knights are 2-1 coming into this contest, with lopsided wins over St Thomas University and Holy Cross. Their lone loss on the season was an absolute drubbing by #24 Florida State in Tallahassee (consequently, FSU is also in the Battle 4 Atlantis).
My take on UCF is that they're a lot like another team in our own conference: Chattanooga. Both the Mocs and the Knights have a team of athletes who can run, jump and dunk. This can put you at an advantage over a lot of teams and I think that's what happened at the beginning of last season for the Knights. They were able to out-hustle their opponents. But as the Mocs are finding out, athleticism only gets you so far. My guess is that once UCF got to conference play last year, their regular opponents figured them out and were able to force them to play a more coordinated style of offense.
The Knights are not a great shooting team (.235 from 3 for the team) and this consequently has lead them to score only about 70 points per game this year. The Cougars should be able to hold them at or below that number and get a victory on Thanksgiving Day. This CofC team is brimming with confidence but I think Cremins has them focused on the task at hand. As I mentioned after the Clemson game, we'll go another layer deeper in seeing what this team is made of. They can either build off of what they've done so far, learn from their 2nd half mistakes and move forward OR they let their egos get out of hand and supply us fans with the first loss of the season. I for one want to see us play Florida State and UConn. But I'll be thankful as long as the Cougs give it their all. Go Cougars!
No comments:
Post a Comment