UCF stumbles in second half against West Virginia, drops third straight

A Valentine’s Day showdown at Addition Financial Arena was supposed to help UCF feel the love again after a recent two-game slide. Instead, the Knights had their hearts broken as West Virginia rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit to pull out a 74-67 win on Saturday.

The loss was painful not only because it was the third in a row, but it put the Knights’ postseason hopes in peril. The team had been on track to earn an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time since the 2018-19 season, but those hopes are starting to evaporate.

West Virginia (16-9, 7-5 Big 12) went on a 28-13 run over the final 8 minutes to pull away with the win.

UCF (17-7, 6-6 Big 12) opened the second half on a 22-9 run to build up a double-digit advantage, but struggled to find an answer for the Mountaineers. The Knights continued their February swoon, falling to 5-13 overall in the month since joining the Big 12 two seasons ago.

“We didn’t execute,” UCF coach Johnny Dawkins said. “Coming down the stretch, you give them a lot of credit; that’s how they won a lot of their basketball games. We knew going in that we had to stay focused, but we didn’t sustain it. We didn’t sustain it in the second half as needed.”

WVU guard Honor Huff scored 18 of his team-high 21 points in the second half, including 10 points in the final 5 minutes. Guard Jasper Floyd added 17 and guard Chance Moore had 12.

Themus Fulks led UCF with 19 points and 7 assists, while Riley Kugel had 13 and Jordan Burks and Chris Johnson had 10 apiece.

After struggling to get off to fast starts in losses to Houston and Cincinnati, Kugel’s 30-footer to open play seemed like the right step for the Knights. But four early turnovers  — three by point guard Fulks — over the first four minutes limited the damage against West Virginia.

UCF missed six of its next seven shots before a Fulks’ layup and foul, which helped the Knights retake the lead at 10-8 with 12:58 left in the half.

West Virginia, however, stormed back to retake the lead, connecting on four of its next six shots to build an 18-15 advantage with 7:45 left. The Mountaineers relied on their size throughout much of the evening, scoring 38 of their 74 points in the paint.

UCF went on a 7-0 run late in the first half, fueled in part by center John Bol, who scored 4 points and blocked 2 shots in a three-minute period. The Knights built their largest lead at 29-24, but went scoreless for the final 2:22, allowing WVU to cut the advantage to 29-28 at the half.

UCF started the second half with a 23-10 run that helped the team soar to its largest lead of the game at 52-38 with 11:27 left in the game.

West Virginia responded with a run of its own — 21-7 — tying the game at 59 with 5 minutes remaining.

“This group’s been in these positions before and typically, we do a good job of not panicking,” West Virginia coach Ross Hodge said.

“We didn’t sustain the lead at all,” added a dejected Burks following the loss.

West Virginia shot 54% from the floor in the second half, while UCF shot 47%.

The Knights were without senior forward Jamichael Stillwell, who missed only his second game of the season. Dawkins said Stillwell injured himself during practice and was day-to-day. Forward Devan Cambridge, who stepped in for Stillwell in the starting lineup, left the game late in the second half under concussion protocol after taking a hard fall on a foul.

UCF must rebound quickly as the Knights wrap up a two-game homestand by hosting TCU (7 p.m., ESPN+) on Tuesday.

“We have a talk about playing winning basketball, playing the right way, not to get out of character,” Dawkins said when asked about avoiding frustration setting in. “We know everybody means well. Everyone wants to help us be successful. But we don’t need hero ball. We need to play together. We need everybody fighting this fight in the same way, fighting our fight and that’s when we’ve had the most success.”

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: moc.lenitnesodnalro@lehcsrumm. Sign up for the Sentinel’s Knights Weekly newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.