Tulsa Drops Home Finale 68-49 to the UCF Knights

Sunday, February 26

4:00 PM

Tulsa

5-23,1-16AAC

UCF

16-12,7-9AAC

UCF

Tulsa

Photo by: Bill Powell

Tulsa Drops Home Finale 68-49 to the UCF Knights

2/26/2023 6:49:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score

GAME STATS | SEASON STATS | HIGHLIGHTS

TULSA, Okla. –– UCF (16-12, 7-9 AAC) cruised to a 68-49 win Sunday afternoon against an undermanned Tulsa team (5-23, 1-16 AAC) on Senior Day in front of 4,059 fans at the Donald W. Reynolds Center.

Tulsa, playing its final home game of the season, didn't have the firepower it needed against the Knights as the Hurricane was missing 30 points from players not dressed for today's game. The Hurricane was held to just 14 points in the first half as UCF built a 32-14 halftime lead. The Knights outscored Tulsa in the second half by just one point, 36-35.

Bryant Selebangue led Tulsa with 12 points and 11 rebounds for his 11^th double-double of the season. Freshman Jesaiah McWright added 11 points, while Tim Dalger and Brandon Betson totaled 10 apiece.

UCF freshman sensation Taylor Hendricks had a game-high 25 points impressing the eight NBA teams in attendance.

The Knights took a double-digit lead at 16-5 at the 6:06 mark of the first half and didn't look back. UCF had its largest lead of 31 points, 50-19, at the 14:09 mark of the second half, but the Hurricane had no quit. From that time, Tulsa outscored the Knights 30-18 and got as close as 16 points with 1:36 left in the game.

"When watching the tape from the first game around, we knew we were going to have to limit their threes and have a much better defensive effort. I thought we had that. There were certainly some mistakes that we made," said Tulsa Head Coach Eric Konkol. "We talked about how we'd have to be in single digit turnovers, but 16 was way too many. We had a really hard time scoring – give UCF some credit on what they were able to do with their pressure in forcing those turnovers."

"I thought (Taylor) Hendricks was sensational. Any time he had an opportunity to make a play, he did. Whether it be around the basket, from three, from midrange, blocking a shot – a little bit of everything. I thought our guys played hard. And that's bottom line what we're trying to accomplish here is to be a very hard playing team. I thought our guys emptied their tank for us here tonight," added Konkol.

UCF shot 44-percent and Tulsa 36-percent from the field for the game. The Knights scored 23 points off 16 Tulsa turnovers and outscored the Hurricane in the paint, 34-to-20.

HOW IT HAPPENED
Only eight points were scored between the two teams in the first five minutes as the score stood even at 4-4.

Jesaiah McWright made the score 5-4 with a free throw at the 14:29 mark, Tulsa went on a scoreless drought of over six minutes, while the Knights had a 12-0 run to take a 16-5 lead with 8:06 remaining in the first half.

Tulsa remained scoreless for nearly another three minutes as UCF built a 21-5 lead with 6:18 left on the first-half clock, before Betson's jumper made it 21-7 at the 5:28 mark.

It was a 19-2 run for the Knights over a span of 9:10 on the clock, as Tulsa's lone field goal in that stretch ended an 0-of-8 streak.

The first half ended with UCF holding a 32-14 lead. The Knights had a 22-8 advantage in the paint, 11-2 edge in points off turnovers, while shooting 54-percent from the field, compared to Tulsa's 27-percent. The Hurricane made just 6-of-22 field goals and 1-of-9 from behind the three-point line.

UCF scored the first nine points of the second half for a 41-14 lead before Jesaiah McWright's three-pointer put Tulsa's first second-half points on the board at the 17:50 mark.

The Knights took its largest lead of 31 points at 50-19 with 14:09 remaining in the contest. The Hurricane closed out the game outscoring UCF 30-18 in the final 12 minutes.

GAME NOTES
• This was the 29^th meeting between Tulsa and UCF … the series now stands at 15-14 in favor of Tulsa.
•    Tulsa was missing 29.9 points from players not dressed for today's game.
•    Tulsa's 14 first-half points is the fewest points in any half for the Hurricane in Reynolds Center history (since Dec. 1998) … before now, fewest in Reynolds Center history for Tulsa was 17 vs. Memphis (1-23-08) in the second half and vs. Southern Miss (2-10-10) in the first half.
•    Tulsa's first-half point total is the fewest in the first half at the Reynolds Center since scoring 18 points (11-24-12) vs. Stephen F. Austin.
•    Brandon Betson had his 13^th double-digit scoring game on the year and 40^th of his career.
•     Freshman Jesaiah McWright had his second straight double-digit scoring game with 11 points … he also scored 11 points in Tulsa's last outing.
•    Tim Dalger had his 13^th double-figure scoring game of the season and the 16^th of his career.
•    Bryant Selebangue had his 16^th double-digit scoring game and 16^th double-figure rebounding game of the season
•     It was also Selebangue's 11^th double-double of the season.

Tulsa closes out the regular season on Wednesday at South Florida before beginning American Athletic Conference Tournament play the following week, March 9-12.