What to watch for against the Knights
This Wednesday, Kansas men’s basketball will hope to make it 2-0 in Big 12 play as they travel 1,200 miles to play UCF. Here’s what to know about the Knights.
Story So Far
Voted last in the preseason Big 12 poll, the Knights haven’t exceeded too many expectations, but they should at the very least finish ahead of lowly West Virginia. UCF doesn’t have any quad 1 or 2 wins thus far, but they’ve taken care of the bad teams, save for a 85-82 loss to Stetson. Their most notable game is a close 2 point loss to Ole Miss, who has just one loss on the season. A lot of people might just see the blowout loss to K State on Saturday, but they’ve shown they can play a good team close, so this could be an early trap game for the Jayhawks if they get caught looking ahead to a top ten matchup this Saturday. Still, the blowout at the hands of K State shows there are quite a few weaknesses to attack. K State isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, but had no problem last Saturday.
Playstyle
Here’s where things get a little interesting. UCF is number 13(!) in the country in forcing turnovers, at 16.7. For anyone who watched Kansas struggle with this against TCU, this could be alarming. The Knights’ defense in general is just quite good, ranked number 26 in Kenpom. So there is rock fight potential if say the average KU team showed up, being a more defensive team as well. (Number 7 defense on Kenpom for KU).
To add to the rock fight, UCF probably won’t light it up from three. They shoot just 30.9% and have an effective field goal percentage of 47.2%, which puts them at 289th and 292nd in the country
Who To Watch For
Jaylin Sellers will certainly be running the show for the Knights, as he’s done all season. He’s a quick player and will always be looking to drive to the rim or play-make in some sort of way. He might shoot a lot of 3s, but he only makes 27%, which is indicative of UCF as a whole. While his shooting is inconsistent, as a whole he will find ways to score, as Saturday was the first time this season he was held under double digits.
Also keep an eye on Ibrahima Diallo. He’s far from a leading option and won’t play 35 minutes, but the Senegalese center stands 7 feet tall, and will be looking forward to testing out his toughness against Dickinson.
And finally, keep an eye on Coach Johnny Dawkins, the same Coach Dawkins who led Stanford to an upset March Madness win over KU in 2014.