That’s right. In case you haven’t heard Mr. Tony Davis has been shut down for the remainder of the season.According to the UCFAA, Davis is ineligible to compete due to direct violations of University and Athletics policies.
It appears he violated similar policies last year when he was suspended as well. Tony has been suspended for the semester, and most likely has played his last game in a Knights uniform. I really want to be aggravated at Tony for doing this (Whatever this is) to the team, but at the same time, I hope he can work out his issues and, at the very least, finish earning his degree.
What this means for UCF:
This is a devastating loss to the program, absolutely wrecking any real chance at post season play. It does mean, however, we will see more A.J. Tyler, PJ Gaynor, Jean Michel Yotio, and even the Polish Hammer himself. It can’t be stressed enough how much this loss hurts the team, Tony Davis was having an absolutely stellar year, and now, most likely will never play basketball again for UCF. Truly unfortunate, as he was the most dominant big man on the team.
This was the ugliest basketball game I've ever witnessed. I'm not sure how we scored 69 points. There really isn't one person to blame for this loss with how badly everyone played. Tony Davis somehow ended up with 20 points and 13 rebounds, 10 of them offensively. Tony seemingly had most of his points on tips off of missed shots. He crashed the boards boards very well and came up with some good blocks.
The turnovers tonight were unbearable to watch. Our starters had a combine 13 turnovers, with 5 more coming from the bench players. Taylor Young checked out with 3 very unusual turnovers tonight. He struggled mightily with passing, and seemed to try to force things far too often. Tonight's performance will definitely hurt his #1 ranking in the assist/turnover ratio.
We all had a scary moment when AJ Rompza collapsed in pain after rolling his ankle early in the second half. The normally energized Rompza slammed his fist on the floor repeatedly, writhing in pain before being carried to the bench. Thankfully AJ came back later in the game with a taped ankle, but was clearly hampered by his injury. He limped on and off the court for the rest of the game, and was slowed a step on defense.
The Knights went under at the beginning of the game and couldn't come back up for air.
About Joe Burnett: I have to say, I love this guy. He was incredibly humble and personable during his autograph signing session and followed it up with a great farewell speech. The best part of this game was Joe's 3 pointer to end halftime. Way to go out on top Joe, we'll always love you.
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.
I’d like to give a preface with this review. I was not able to see the game in its entirety. I missed a minute or two at times because channelsurfing.net had to buffer and the game froze up. I would venture to say I did see around 80% of the game though.
The first half of this game was ugly, very ugly. The second half had the potential to go the same way, but thankfully Rice just couldn’t hit a shot to save their lives with ten minutes to go in the game. Time after time Rice came up with decent shots, only for them to rim out. I think we got somewhat lucky that this game wasn’t closer. Something I noticed on Rice during this time period: Their only points outside of the 6 free throws they hit was a single layup by Trey Stanton. Turnovers were a big problem with us at the beginning of the game. We had 9 giveaways up until Tony’s 3, at which point we started protecting the ball better. (We had no more for the rest of the game.)
Jermaine Taylor led the team in scoring yet again, but not by much. Tony Davis had a great game and ended with a double-double, with 12 rebounds and 17 points while playing through what looked to be a busted eyebrow. Davis also broke the game wide open with his 3 pointer with 14 minutes left in the game. Until then the game had been a very close matchup, yet after this we pulled away with an 11-0 run. Tony is turning into a gamebreaker and I’m loving it. Zondervan also had a very solid game, scoring 12 points. Our big men have been stepping it up this year when we need them more than ever. They’re making layups, and taking fouls. All we need from them is solid execution, and they’ve been great about that. Jermaine only logged 23 minutes in this game, which is interesting. Thankfully some of the guys off the bench got some playing time including Jean-Michel Yotio, Will Weathers (who showed some nifty ball handling skills when he got the chance), and PJ Gaynor.
Vin's thoughts:
1.I’m running out of colloquialism’s to use with Tony Davis during these post-game recaps, so I’m just going to recycle the old ones. TONY DAVIS, BABY! Tony Davis started to take control late in the first half, and never lost his touch in the second half. He finished with a double-double, 17 points, and 12 rebounds. He has really hit his stride, and when Tony is playing this well, you just have the confidence that we can win every game. Keep it up, TD!
2.Jermaine Taylor had another stellar performance, finishing up with 20 points and 4 boards in just 23 minutes, him and TD are becoming an insane duo.
3.Any time Kenny Z finishes with double digit points, he deserves a mention here. He finished the game with 12 points, helping maintain his team leading 63% shooting average. All the Z haters can shut up for another week now.
4.AJ Rompza had another solid game as well, earning himself 3 steals, 6 assists, and 7 points. Shorty even had 2 rebounds. Quality stuff, I love watching him improve each week. Oh yea, only 1 turnover for Rompza; when he keeps the TOs down, he gives us that much more of a chance to win.
5.Nice to see Sosa, Baez, and Tyler get some quality minutes off the bench. The trio combined for 15 points. Would be nice to see Will Weathers get some more playing time/experience. He always looks like a great ball handler when he is on the court. Hopefully he keeps working hard.
In the end, this was a big win for the Knights, it wasn’t always pretty, the defense wasn’t perfect either, but it was a huge conference win. Hopefully the fans see this score and remember to pack the dungeon this Wednesday.
Photo Credits: Brandon Helwig, UCFSports.com
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