The UCF Knights Men’s Basketball team could not keep up with Vanderbilt’s high-powered offense in a 105-93 loss to the Commodores Saturday at home.
Senior guard Riley Kugel was one of the few bright spots
for the Knights as he got off to another hot start for the second game this season. Kugel scored five points in the first minute of the game and finished as the leading scorer in the first half with 14 points.
Vanderbilt head coach Mark Byington is familiar with Kugel’s game, being former conference opponents.
“Riley Kugel is an extremely talented player,” Byington said. “We know him from the SEC already so that’s not a surprise. But I think with this system and this style, I mean, he’s going to have a heck of a year, so he causes a lot of problems.”
The Knights trailed by as much as 19 in the first half as the Commodores rained 10 threes on 19 attempts. UCF came out of the locker room for the second half facing a 16-point deficit.
“In halftime we emphasized what they had done well, which was you know 10 threes in the first half,” UCF head coach Johnny Dawkins said. “And that opened up things for them, they were playing with a lot of confidence. So we wanted to really do a better job of defending the three point line.”
UCF’s defense did defend the three-point shot better in the second half, allowing just four makes to bring the deficit to as little as nine. However, Vanderbilt was able to adjust and still scored 105 points. The Commodores were in control almost the entire way, recording nearly 37 minutes with the lead.
Despite the emphasis on limiting threes, Vanderbilt carried the same fast-paced offensive mentality from the first half over to the second. Vanderbilt came out of the locker room and went on an 8-0 run in the first two minutes of the second half, extending its lead to 24 at the time.
With just under six minutes left in the game, the energy in Addition Financial Arena began to shift. The Knights cut Vanderbilt’s lead, which was as large as 27 at one point, down to nine points. But UCF was unable to get it any closer than that.
Junior guard Chris Johnson, who dropped 17 points in just 15 minutes off the bench, put it simply on how he and his teammates can carry that momentum from the end of the game into the next one.
“Just by staying positive and building,” Johnson said.
The Knights will look to rebound against Florida A&M on Tuesday at 7 p.m.
