ORLANDO – Sophomore forward Kasey Wilson had 20 points and three rebounds to lead the Knights to a victory against the Georgia Southwestern Hurricanes 65-50 on Tuesday, Feb. 26 at the University of Central Florida arena.
Wilson scored the first two points of the game and led the Knights in points with 7-11 in field goals and 5-7 in field goals off the three-point line.
“In half time we had to pick up the intensity on defense and they had possession and I think that turned out well with us hustling on defense and us getting offensive points and sharing the ball well,” said Wilson.
The Knights worked as a team with their pass-play offense and defense making it a big key against the Hurricanes.
The Knights increase their record to (19- 9) still in 3rd place the Conference USA standings. The Knights have their senior night home game against Memphis on March 2.
UCF had a small lead with seven points in the first half, 23-16, which kept the Hurricanes’ pressure on the Knights.
‘’Our guys want to be easy in the first half and wanted to come out and try to make one or two passes and be able to get an open shot or not earning anything,” said UCF head coach Donnie Jones. “Defensively we played hard. We were up 16 points we should have been up a lot more.
“We should’ve shot the ball much more if we executed the ball offensively.”
By the second half, the Knights led the Hurricanes by 18 points in majority of the game thanks to the team’s hard defense with 45 rebounds, 11 steals and pushing the Hurricanes’ turnover count to 18 times in the game.
Senior forward Keith Clanton was a big contribution defensively, leading the team with 12 rebounds.
Also Tristan Spurlock and Isaiah Sykes were a big factor in the win for the Knights.
Spurlock scored 13 points and had 7 rebounds, and Sykes had 11 points with 8 rebounds in the win against the Hurricanes.
Georgia Southwestern played some intense basketball and tried to get the win but ended up losing big.
“We played against a much higher level of competition with their size, their athleticism,” said Head Georgia Southwestern coach Mike Leeder. “Just to come down here and play in this environment is just great for a school like ours and for coach Jones to give us this experience. All we took is just positives.”
Daryl Davis was a big contributor for the Hurricanes, leading the team with 16 points and 8 rebounds and losing a tooth in the second half of the game.
It was his first tooth lost in a basketball game, according to Davis.
UCF’s next game is against the University of Memphis on Saturday, March 2 at 1 p.m.
