No sooner did the UCF Knights enter the AP Top 25, the Oklahoma State Cowboys may have sent them back out of it with an 87-76 win in Stillwater on Tuesday.
The loss was the first for UCF in Big 12 and their
first road loss of the season. UCF is now 12-2, with Oklahoma State now at a surprising 13-2 on the season.
So what went wrong?
Three-Point Drought
UCF’s three-point shooting has been up and down at times this season, but in the first half, it was WAY down.
The Knights shot just 1/14 from beyond the arc in the first half (7/33 overall), and this came against a team that’s 159th in the nation in three-point percentage defense. The shots just didn’t fall.
The rough shooting was contagious Jordan Burks struggled, going 0/11 from the field for just three points.
George Beale, whose role is to shot off the bench, was 3/9 from the arc.
Oklahoma State Made Themus Fulks’ Life Miserable
Themus Fulks came in 12th in the nation in assists per game at 6.6, but had only four the whole game, thanks to outstanding defense by OSU’s Kany Clary, who posted 18 points, 9 rebounds and 8 assists. Fulks also committed three turnovers.
It was the best game of the year for Clary, who was a teammate of Riley Kugel at Mississippi State last year, and averaged almost 17 points per game at Penn State the year before that.
Oklahoma State Is Good
In their second season under Steve Lutz, Oklahoma State is off to as hot a start as UCF is, at 13-2 with losses only to Texas Tech and Oklahoma. Clary leas the 18th-best scoring offense in the nation, and so this game was going to be a challenge for UCF from the jump.
What went right?
To UCF’s credit, they dominated second-chance opportunities 20-2, thanks to a 13-5 offensive rebound edge, and had the game within reach at 67-64 with 8:01 to go. But a 13-1 spurt by the Cowboys over the next five minutes, combined with one final cold stretch (9 misses in a row) for the Knights, put that to bed.
What’s next
UCF is back home this weekend to face an old foe in Cincinnati.
The Bearcats are struggling at 8-7, and 0-2 in their first two games of the conference season against West Virginia and Houston.
Tip-off at AdFi is slated for 5 p.m. on Sunday.
