UCF Holds Off Scrappy ECU 64-60
UCF held off a determined East Carolina team that returned from a month long hiatus due to Covid-19, 64-60 in Minges Coliseum Thursday night.
Jayden Gardner and Tristen Newton each generated 18 points to lead all scorers while UCF placed four players in double-figures led by Isiah Adams’ 15 points. Darius Perry and Darrin Green added 14 points each for the Knights and Perry pulled down 11 rebounds.
The Pirates fell behind 14-3 early, battled back to within two, but could never completely climb out of the hole.
“It was very frustrating. A lot of things that ended up happening were self inflicted and some of it was they also made some plays,” ECU head coach Joe Dooley said afterward, “We’d get it to two and there would be a four point swing, we’ve get it to three and then there would be a 4-0 run to get it back to eight. We kept chipping away. We obviously never took the lead. I though we had some opportunities and we made some runs.”
But ECU(8-9/2-9 AAC) would not go away and they nearly pulled it off in the second half before faltering late in the contest.
“Perry made some plays and obviously that little stretch in the second half when Diggs went to work and that was really big,” said Dooley.
“We had to expend a lot energy getting back in the game which worried us. We did get to the free throw line which really saved us in the first half because we didn’t shoot the ball very well from the three point line in the first half,” Dooley told PI, "We shot a lot better in the second half. We didn’t get to the free throw line as much in the second half. They were in the bonus before we were. A lot of that was attributed to the fact that they played a lot more zone in the second half too and obviously we don’t get to drive it as much and that bothered us.”
Gardner did his part scoring wise, but with the Pirates being out for nearly a month, it took a while to fully get up to game speed.
“It was very tough. Three weeks off, very hard. They hit us in the mouth early. I think they’ve played like nine games since we played, basically every other day. They came out with a rhythm and confidence. We established ourselves and we got back into the game,” said Gardner.
“If we were playing regularly, it wouldn’t have went like that because we would have been up to speed and the rhythm of the game, but nobody cares that we haven’t played in three or four weeks,” Gardner told PirateIllustrated.com, “We’ve just got to live and learn with it.”
Tristen Newton put together one of his better performances of the season in a game that proved to be winnable had a few more shots gone down overall.
“It’s always frustrating losing, but knowing we were in the game after this long pause gives us a little bit of confidence,” Tristen Newton told PI, “We did want to come out with the win, but I think we did some good things and we can build on it.”
UCF(10-11/8-10 AAC) jumped out to an early eleven point lead in the first five minutes of the game against a Pirate team that hasn’t played game since February 8. Isiah Adams had eleven points of his 15 points in the first ten minutes for the Knights while nobody had more than four points for ECU.
The Pirates shut Adams down for the rest of the half and eventually trimmed the Knight lead to 24-20 on a Tremont Robinson-White drive in transition with less than eight minutes to go until the intermission, but it was not long before UCF pushed the lead right back up to nine.
Jayden Gardner and Tristen Newton then launched in three-pointers for ECU before a Gardner free throw cut the Knight lead to as little as four before UCF took a 36-28 lead into the locker room at halftime. Gardner led all scorers with 12 first half points while Adams and Darin Green, Jr. had 11 each to lead the Knights.
Less than two minutes into the second half, Tristen Newton and J.J. Miles knocked down a pair of ECU three-pointers that quickly cut the UCF lead to three at 39-36. The Pirates were still within four midway into the second period on a Jayden Gardner three-point play in the paint.
Two Tremont Robinson-White baskets in succession followed by his steal and massive dunk in transition kept the Pirates hanging around at the three minute mark in a 59-57 contest. But less than a minute later, two straight Knight buckets including a three-pointer from Darrin Green pushed the UCF lead back to seven.
Tristen Newton’s three-pointer that cut the UCF lead to 64-60 with 1:05 left gave ECU hope as did a subsequent Knight turnover on an inbounds pass. But a pair of contested J.J. Miles missed three-point attempts at the end allowed the Knights to escape with the victory.
ECU returns to action on Sunday when they close out the regular season for Senior Day against Cincinnati. Tipoff is at 1 p.m.
