East Carolina’s B.J. Tyson misses a 3-point basket to tie the score in the final seconds of UConn’s 70-65 victory over the Pirates on Saturday, Jan. 6, 2018 at the XL Center in Hartford. (Jessica Hill/AP)
Fresh off a 70-65 victory over East Carolina at the XL Center Saturday, the UConn men’s basketball team returns to action tonight to take on the 12-4 UCF Knights in a mid-week matchup.
The Huskies have found success at home this season, winning seven of their eight home games with their only loss coming at the hands of No. 8 Wichita State on December 30th. Specifically, UConn is 3-0 at Gampel this season, the most recent Gampel victory being the infamous Coppin State game on December 9th. If the home record isn’t enough, the Huskies have a 10-1 record all-time against the Knights including seven straight dating back to 2014. UConn’s lone loss against UCF came back in November of 2011.
The Knights have won three straight and eight of their last nine propelling them to an impressive 12-4 start (even more impressive considering their star guard B.J. Taylor broke his foot in the first game.) UConn big men will have their hands full with 7-6 center Tacko Fall (11.6 ppg, 7.4 rpg) and forward A.J. Davis (11.3 ppg, 8.8 rpg).
The Huskies will try counter this with the current leading scorer in the American, junior guard Jalen Adams (18.9 ppg) who enters the game just 10 points shy of 1,000 in his UConn career. He will be the 50th player to reach this mark.
Adams will be backed with the supporting cast of junior Terry Larrier and sophomore Christian Vital. The three combined for 50 of UConn’s 70 points on Saturday.
The UConn defense forced a season-high 21 turnovers on Saturday, which is hopefully a sign of good things to come moving forward.
Following Saturday’s sloppy win over ECU, Kevin Ollie was non-apologetic while preaching the idea of moving forward.
“I’m not going to apologize for a victory, any day,” UConn head coach Kevin Ollie said. “We got to move on and just get better.”
Moving on to UCF won’t be an easy task. The Knights have a 3-1 road record this season, including a win over an Alabama team currently ranked 52 in KenPom.
And, for context of course, the Huskies are currently sitting at 148.
Connor Donahue is the digital editor for The Daily Campus. He can be reached via email at connor.f.donahue@uconn.edu. He tweets @conn_donahue.