Johnny Dawkins is back to lead the UCF Knights men’s basketball team into his eighth season as coach, but the program’s second season in the Big 12 Conference.
Before the Knights, Dawkins — a former player at Duke — was the head coach at Stanford for eight seasons.
He took the Knights to the NIT Tournament last season as the Knights finished 17-16. Their high mark as a first-year Big 12 member was beating Kansas at home in January in front of a national television audience.
Now, Dawkins is hoping to get the Knights back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019.
It won’t be easy. Between players who ran out of eligibility and transfers, Dawkins turned over nearly his entire roster. There isn’t much consistency from last year to this year and Dawkins hopes that he’s procured talent that can help his program take the next step in the Big 12.
Here’s a preview of the UCF Knights’ upcoming season.
Odds
BetOnline’s opening odds gave the Knights +30000 odds to win the national title. The Big 12 coaches picked UCF to finish 11th in the preseason poll. The Knights were not ranked in the AP preseason Top 25.
Three Players to Watch
F Jordan Ivy-Curry: Ivy-Curry was at UTSA last year and he put up a huge season for the Roadrunners, as he averaged 17.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.0 assists. He should be an immediate injection of offense for a team that needs it.
G Jaylin Sellers and Darius Johnson: The Knights don’t have much returning from last year but thank goodness they have Sellers and Johnson. Sellers averaged 15.9 points, which led the Knights, and pitched in 3.6 rebounds. Johnson averaged 15.2 points and led the team with 3.7 assists. They’ll be the foundation of whatever success the Knights have.
G Keyshawn Hall: The transfer comes from a quality mid-major program at George Mason, where he averaged 16.6 points and 8.1 rebounds for the Patriots last season. He likely won’t have those rebounding numbers, but he fits in with a team that has plenty of offense and he can hit 36% of his 3-pointers.
Biggest Strength
Guard play. That’s pretty obvious. With Sellers, Johnson, Ivy-Curry and Hall the Knights have four guards that can hit double figures on a given night. But they’re not the only guards that could contribute. Mikey Williams joins the program after putting his legal issues behind him. Deebo Coleman is a Georgia Tech transfer. Taylor Hendricks is also back from last year’s team. Dawkins has assembled an array of shooters and ball handlers who can do whatever he needs on the offensive end.
Biggest Weakness
Frontcourt. This is going to be a mostly new group up front and figuring out the rotation that works best with these guards will take some time. There are no significant holdovers from last year’s front court. So the Knights could turn to Syracuse transfer Benny Williams, who was dismissed from that program in February. He’s been productive but he’s never been a double-digit scorer. The Knights also have Bethune-Cookman transfer Elijah Hulsewe and 7-2 freshman Moustapha Thiam, who reclassified. It’s going to take Dawkins a while to sort through what appears to be a limited group of options.
Season Prediction
This should be one of the more intriguing teams in the Big 12 this season. On paper the Knights have a set of guards that can be competitive with any other team in the conference. Four different experienced players have averaged double figures and there are at least two other guards with little experience that could do the same. The big problem is how this team is going to compete with other teams inside with such limited frontcourt options. Dawkins could try to play without a true center and there are times he may have to. The Knights look like a 16-to-18 win team going into the Big 12 tournament in March.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
