The Knights almost had to come into this game short-handed as Isaiah Sykes was listed as questionable during pre-game with a sore wrist suffered in the Saturday win over UAB. That would have negated the advantage UCF has in tonight’s game as UAB is without starting point guard Quincy Taylor who suffered a season-ending knee injury in the same game.
UAB is playing with essentially a six-man rotation tonight with Jordan Swing handling the point guard duties and the Knights have been able to use a tough defense that has taken all-conference forward Cameron Moore out of the offense forcing others to step up and score. So far, Preston Purify and Ovie Soko have done that combining to score 21 points but the other four Blazers have added just eight and UAB trails UCF 36-29 at the half.
UCF shot 59 percent from the floor in the first half while hitting only four of ten of its 3-point attempts; UCF had ten first half 3-point shots five days ago against UAB. Isaiah Sykes, Marcus Jordan, and Keith Clanton have each scored at least eight points on 11 of 18 shooting. The Knights hold a two rebound edge on the boards and have ten assists to just three turnovers while UAB has six assists and five turnovers.