The first 18 minutes of this contest was very sloppy for both teams on both sides of the ball with many missed shots from in the paint and just as many turnovers on both sides of the floor. The game turned just before halftime on back to back three pointers by Tristan Spurlock with the second one coming as the buzzer went off to give the Knights at six-point lead heading into the locker room and one they would hold on to in an exciting second half of play in front of a crowd of 4,621.
The teams combined to score just 48 points in the first half but added 66 in the second half with Keith Clanton leading all scorers on the night with 23 points along with 16 rebounds and 4 blocked shots in 36 minutes of play. Clanton was 8 of 14 from the floor including a perfect 3 for 3 from behind the arc as the Monarchs were unable to stop him with single or double-coverage on the night. Two Old Dominion players, Chris Cooper and Richard Ross, both fouled out trying to contain Clanton and Dwight McCombs on the inside who were 11 of 17 from the field. Marcus Jordan chipped in 17 points, most of which came from the three point line and he was fouled quite often in the second half of the game going to the basket. UCF won this game despite committing 15 turnovers and shooting a higher percentage from the 3-point line (58.3%) than they did from the free-throw line (58.1%).
The Monarchs were led by Kent Bazemore who scored 16 pointsand Dimitri Batten who added 12 more. Leading scorer Nick Wright was held to just four points on 1 of 7 shooting. Chris Cooper came into the game averaging a double-double but was held scoreless in 22 minutes of play although he did grab ten more rebounds.
The Knights improve to 8-2 on the season and travel to Lafayette, Louisiana to take on the Rajun Cajuns on Wednesday night for their first road game since losing to Harvard in the championship game in Atlantis over Thanksgiving weekend. The Rajun Cajuns have a RPI of 206 and lost on the road to Robert Morris 72-64.