The UCF Golden Knights finished their trip through the Atlantic Sun Conference North Division on Saturday with a convincing 82-59 win over Gardner-Webb at the UCF Arena.
UCF improved to 17-7 on the year and 9-2 in the A-Sun.
The Knights have already matched their win total from last season and they have five games left in the regular season.
UCF’s defense held the Runnin’ Bulldogs (3-20 overall, 1-10 A-Sun) to just six points through the first 111/2 minutes of the game as the Knights jumped out to a 33-6 lead.
“I thought the first 10 minutes of the game was the deciding part of the game,” UCF Coach Kirk Speraw said. “I thought we did a very nice job defensively of establishing our defense. I thought we did a nice job of moving the ball offensively, getting good looks.”
UCF went into the locker room leading 42-21. It was when the Knights came out of the locker room that things got a little interesting. Speraw said when they left the court at halftime there were 20 minutes on the clock instead of the usual 15.
At some point during the break, five minutes got knocked off the clock, cutting the time back to 15 minutes.
No one mentioned that to UCF, though, and the Knights strolled back onto the court as the buzzer rang. UCF began the second half with no warm-ups and no coaches on the bench.
Gardner-Webb, which did warm up, jumped on the Knights in the first seven minutes and used a 13-4 run to cut the lead to 12.
“I thought we moved the ball well offensively [to start the second half], we just didn’t make shots early in the second half,” Speraw said. “I didn’t think we had the edge defensively, but we sat in there for a long time and didn’t get any warm-ups.”
After the Bulldogs cut the lead to 12, UCF regained its offensive touch and scored 36 points the rest of the way, including three 3-pointers in a row by freshman Troy Lindbeck.
Ray Abellard led the Knights with 17 points, and Roberto Morentin had 14 and Dexter Lyons had 13.
