UCF men’s basketball beat Gardner-Webb by a score of 68-65 on Nov. 15^th. UCF was stretched thin in this win but ended up coming out on top with defense playing another big role.

“I like our interior defense,” head coach Johnny Dawkins said. “I thought our guys do a great job of understanding where they play defensively.” UCF had a team total of eight blocks in this game with big man Chad Brown contributing five of his own and seven in UCF’s first two games.

During the first half of this back-and-forth battle, UCF managed to hold Gardner-Webb to just 28 points on just 34.4% shooting. Meanwhile, UCF didn’t shoot that much better at just 32% from the field and only 2-9 from 3-point range.

With 11 minutes to play in the second half, UCF went on a 10-0 run to stretch the lead to 12 with a score of 60-48. Gardner-Webb wouldn’t give in with a 17-6 run of their own to cut the lead to just one with 34 seconds to play in the game.

“I like to give them credit,” Coach Dawkins said about how Gardner-Webb played tonight. “They never got out of character.”

A.J. Davis ended up leading the team in scoring with 15 points and also added 10 rebounds to that effort. Chad Brown was also electric with 10 points and 10 rebounds to go along with an impressive five blocks.

For Gardner-Webb they were led by a 21-point outing from their forward D.J. Laster and also added nine rebounds. David Efianyi also added 18 points.

UCF will look to keep the winning streak alive when they end their current three-game home-stand against William & Mary Tribe on November 18th.