SMU @ UCF: Post-game Review (W 70-45)

Matt's thoughts:

I’d like to start off with the player who I thought deserved to be player of the game: AJ Tyler. This guy is becoming a beast at the power forward position within only a few games. Before the game against Southern Miss, he seemed like a decent player off the bench, but still more suited to play the SF than the PF. Tonight he proved his worth and more while recording the first double-double of his career in points and rebounds. He boxes out well on defense and crashes the boards on offense. He’s got great presence inside even though his body isn’t as big as other 4’s. He’s got versatility and speed, and most of all, he’s got solid defense. He’s on his way to becoming my favorite player. He played like a man tonight, picking up the slack when Tony Davis came out of the game bleeding.

AJ Rompza had a solid game tonight with 11 assists (including quite a few gorgeous passes I might add). He also ended up with 6 rebounds some way or another, another show of his effort and intensity.

I cannot stress enough how happy I am with our free throw shooting this year. Yet again we come away with an impeccable percentage from the line, going 12-13 as a team.

Taylor Young and Tony Davis were both injured in the first half, but came back to play in the second half. Let’s hope that’s all that comes of their injuries, and that they have a speedy recovery.

Something that may take a while to heal is Kory Pugh’s pride. He racked up two steals tonight, one that left him on a breakaway all by himself towards the opponent’s hoop. Now in the pre-game, Pugh seemed to dunk with very little problem. During the game it seemed to be a bit different. Kory went up for the dunk and missed…with no one within twenty feet of him. I feel bad for the kid, and I hope he can recover and record his first points on the season on something just as motivating as a big dunk like he tried to do.

Overall I was very happy with this game. Taylor Young showed his reluctance to shoot again, but it didn’t hurt us tonight with SMU barely scoring at all. Thankfully they shot a lowly 29.8% from the field. I was happy to see some decent playing time out of Kuba, as well as Isaac at the 1 spot. I’d like to see his dribbling improve, and that’s one way to see his progress.

Marshall @ UCF: Post-game Review

I know it’s been a day, but better late than never. To begin, I love our depth at the 4 and 5 spots lately. AJ Tyler had an absolute breakout game, scoring 15 and picking up his game after Z got in early foul trouble. Tony Davis played well again, scoring 12. Isaac Sosa was perfect in shooting on the game, ringing up 10 points. I loved the confidence he displayed on his second three pointer, he caught the ball and immediately knew he had enough room to jump and fire. Very impressive.

Taylor Young ended up with his first turnover in conference play after making a bad alley-oop pass to Jermaine Taylor. Young has been playing great in the past couple of games, but his lack of confidence in his own shooting may be hurting us. There were multiple instances during this game where Taylor was absolutely wide open and decided to try and dish the ball instead of shooting a wide open jumper. He seems to shoot only when the play clock is below 5 and when he is forced into it. So far this year he seems to be a decent shooter, he just needs to get a little more confident. Otherwise Taylor had another spectacular game.

Jakub “The Polish Hammer” Kusmieruk even got some playing time this game, and didn’t do all that bad. He was fed inside a couple of times and managed to hit an open layup (though I’m disappointed he didn’t dunk it, that would have been awesome.)

One more thing I love about AJ Tyler is his versatility. He has the ability to move outside the arc and hit 3’s with very solid consistency for a 6’9” forward. I have a feeling he was recruited to play small forward at Clemson, but has made a great transition to power forward for us.

Vin's thoughts:

Don’t you love it when Marshall comes to town? The school that just lets us beat them, and beat them. Yet another big conference win, actually the third in a row. UCF is firing on all cylinders, and the excitement keeps building. The game was fairly close until Jermaine Taylor found his shot, and helped the Knights go on an 11-2 run in the last few minutes of the first half, springing UCF to a 50-41 halftime lead. The Knights never trailed again.

Some thoughts about the game:

1. Jermaine Taylor, your ICON status is building. He earned his 3^rd CUSA Player of the week award this season, 5^th in his career. He put up 58 points in the Knights two matchups, and pulled himself closer to UCF immortality.

2. The team shot an incredible 73.3 percent from beyond the arc. Second best percentage in UCF history. Better than that, UCF shot 90.9 percent from the Free Throw line. Gotta love it.

3. Even better than that, four Knights had double digit points, two Knights had 7 boards, and 2 had 7 assists.

4. Drew’s back! Played a couple minutes in mop-up duty, hit a 3 and had a steal. Glad to have him back in uniform. After the game Drew came running into the student section reminding as many as he could that we have a game Wednesday night. Great stuff from a great kid.

5. PJ Gaynor and Will Weathers were not dressed; I got to believe it was grades related. Hopefully they get their acts together soon.

6. KUBA! He’s not ready, everyone knows this, but his one FG may have gotten the crowd more energized than Jermaine big dunk. Feed the Hammer!

7. Matt and I view Taylor Young’s play a little bit different, I suppose. I don’t think he lacks as much confidence as people are claiming, and thought he had some big assists. His shot will come, I’d rather him dish it out than force an ugly one.

Some other thoughts:

1. Coach Rooney, I’ll take another glass of the Kool-aide, please. Can this guy get you excited, or what? I think Matt wanted to hit the batting cages after he was through talking. I love the enthusiasm, and talking to the players after the game, it seems they do too.

2. Students, please spread the word about the Wednesday night game. The team feeds off of the Knightmares’ energy. UCF boasts one of the best home records in the nation, over 80% win percentage since the Arena opened. Just because UCF isn’t giving anything away doesn’t mean you shouldn’t show up. And really, UCF gives you free tickets to one of the most exciting events in Central Florida, LETS GO PEOPLE.

3. I’m taking this one from Mr. Hoops McKnight*: Knightmoves, can we get some better looking pants?

4. Where in the world is Knightro? Back to back absences. What happened?

Scouting news: We spotted another NBA scout yesterday. His papers showed he was from the Atlanta Hawks, though we couldn't catch his name. I can only assume he was there to watch Jermaine.

Southern Miss @ UCF: Post-game Review

Matt's Thoughts on the game:
The Knights played very well in a convincing win tonight over conference foe Southern Miss. Jermaine Taylor led us in scoring as always, I saw a different Jermaine Taylor tonight than I have ever seen before. Southern Miss shut him down inside both from the post and off of drives. Although he had quite a few open looks from 3, he was only 3-10 on the night. He cooled off noticeably going into halftime after missing 2 or 3 of them in a row, and the most important part of the night, he made the adjustment! Jermaine started taking mid-range jumpers and nailed them every time. This is the kind of adjustment I’ve been looking for from him for the last two years. We’ve known he can shoot the 3 and slam the ball, but could he consistently make jumpers inside the arc? Yes he can, and yes he did. He was blocked twice on dunks and seemed to get flustered for about 5 minutes while trying to do too much to prove himself. After he calmed down, he came back to hitting 15 foot jumpers with ease.

Zondervan had another great offensive game, and I cannot stress enough how much I love his passion and hustle. He’s receiving passes in the paint much better lately, and it shows. He finished his layups well tonight, and he seems to be hitting his stride. I saw quite a few great passes tonight; especially the one to Z right after the Golden Eagles missed a shot. We took down the rebound and quickly moved it up the court, ending with a quick slicing pass under the basket to Kenny for the easy bucket. His hustle made the play perfect. He sprinted the length of the court to get in position quickly and executed perfectly.

The three point shooting the Golden Eagles displayed tonight was completely unexpected on my part. They shot 10% higher tonight than they have on the season, a clear improvement. We did get into some foul trouble tonight with Zondervan and Rompza racking up 3 fouls each just after halftime, but our depth is proving to be our strength. When Rompza comes out, Taylor Young and Will Weathers come in and play just as well. When Z gets in a bit of trouble, AJ Tyler comes in with some beautiful sky hooks.

I was very impressed tonight, and we proved we can play near the top of this conference. We need to keep this momentum rolling through this home-stand and beyond.

Another NBA Scout?: On a side note, word inside the arena was that an Orlando Magic scout came to watch the game while taking notes from section 107. More NBA news for Mr. Jermaine Taylor is always good for both the school and Jermaine himself.

Southern Miss @ UCF: Preview

Matt's pre-game notes:

After taking down Rice for their first conference win, the Knights come home tomorrow for a game against the Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles. Southern Miss enters the contest with an 11-6 record, and a 2-1 in conference record, beating Tulane and a decent Houston team while losing to an underrated Tulsa team.

The Golden Eagles have a solid team overall. From what I can tell, there are a few things we need to look out for:

Guard Jeremy Wise, #3. He’s the team’s leading scorer at 17 PPG and he shoots almost 30% from 3. A versatile player, he lacks great height. To counter him, we’re going to need Jermaine Taylor to do what he does best: score. His 3pt% isn’t anything near amazing, so Tony Davis and Kenny Z are going to have to continue their dominance inside and make it tough for him to drive to the hoop. They don’t necessarily have to avoid fouls as much with AJ Tyler playing well inside lately as well. We have the depth to allow a couple of fouls to discourage their inside game.

Guard Craig Craft, #23. He’s the teams best 3 point shooter by miles, and has played in every game this season, starting in 9 of them. He hits almost 40% of his 3 pointers, a very solid number. We have to keep an eye on him whenever he’s beyond the arc. We may want to stick Rompza on him so we have someone on him at all times.

There are a couple of notes we should take advantage of with the Golden Eagles as well:

They have a huge lack of depth. Their starters account for 88% of their points, and we need to take advantage of this. We need to run a fast paced offense while moving the ball quickly down the court. We have far more depth than they do, and while we can sub in bench players to give our starters rest and still score, they aren’t going to be able to. We need to run, run, run, and run some more. Either they’re going to run with us and get tired, or let us run and have advantages in numbers down the floor after defensive rebounds.

Their other weakness is their inside play. Of their top 7 scorers, 6 are guards, and the one other is a forward. Interestingly enough their 6’3” guard Courtney Beasley is their leading rebounder by nearly 30 on the season. Davis, Zondervan, and Tyler should all crash the boards and make their putbacks. If we can’t take advantage of a weak inside game tomorrow, we may have issues.