By JUSTIN KANE
Their time is now. For the University of Central Florida men’s basketball team it is the time to win. After starting 14-0 (1-0 in Conference USA) the Knights have hit a roadblock losing six straight and dropping out of the national rankings and are last place in the C-USA. This posed the questions to basketball gurus and fans: Has their 15 minutes of fame run out? Was it due to an easy non-conference schedule?
Neither. The Knights simply collapsed under the pressure of the national spotlight. After 14 straight wins, and having Michael Jordan’s son as their leading scorer, the media was all over the Knights. On Dec. 18, Marcus Jordan badly injured his ankle in a win against Miami. Although x-rays were negative Jordan hasn’t been the same since and his lack of leadership has hurt the Knights. In the first 10 games (which includes the Miami game) UCF averaged 79 points per game, in nine games since then they’ve averaged only 65. The saying is “there is no ‘I’ in team,” but obviously the I in UCF is Jordan.
Some quick tidbits about UCF’s latest struggles include: in the first 13 games of the season (all non-conference) they averaged 77 points per game, in the six conference games they average 63 points. A stunning 13 points less. Is the C-USA underrated? Yes, playing one of the hardest non-conference schedules and going 13-0 then coming into the conference and going 1-5, the competition is obviously tougher than previous years. Eleven out of 12 teams have 10 or more wins with Rice being the exception with nine wins, who just beat UCF 50-57. UCF did not win in the whole month of January.
Listen up UCF, the solution to this slump is simple: stop thinking you can beat anyone, because in the last six games you haven’t beaten anyone. Just play the game that head coach Donnie Jones implemented this season. Jones stated he was going to “shuffle up” the lineup to stop the skid, but that didn’t work as they lost to University of Alabama Birmingham 69-74. Wednesday the Knights face the University of Texas El Paso in a must win in order to salvage this season. So to Donnie Jones and UCF a lineup change isn’t what is needed a mindset change is.