Backed by wins in 15 of their past 17 head-to-head meetings, No. 10 Houston will aim to continue its success against UCF in a Big 12 game Saturday in Orlando, Fla.
Tip-off for UCF’s annual Space Game will be noon. The Knights (12-4, 3-2) will wear alternate uniforms featuring black and “Canaveral blue” accent colors as well as “SPACEU” lettered across the front of the jersey.
Keyshawn Hall delivered an otherworldly performance on Tuesday as UCF completed a two-game swing through the Grand Canyon State. The George Mason transfer scored 29 of his career-high 40 points in the first half to fuel the Knights’ 95-89 win over Arizona State.
Hall didn’t miss (10 of 10) at the free-throw line and shot 72 percent (13 of 18) from the floor with four 3-pointers, and he also contributed seven rebounds and six assists across 32 minutes. It marked the most points by a Big 12 player this season, and the third most in UCF’s Division I history for a single game.
“I love this league. As a kid you always dreamed to be playing on the top teams or with the top teams, and that’s why I’m just happy to be here,” Hall said post-game.
Hall, whose scoring average has jumped to 17.6 points per game with double-digit efforts in seven straight outings, was not the only UCF player to have a career performance on Tuesday.
With Jaylin Sellers and 7-foot-2 freshman Moustapha Thiam out of the lineup, sophomore JJ Taylor played a season-high 27 minutes off the bench and scored a career-best 14 points. His nine rebounds also tied a career high.
Saturday will mark the 32nd all-time matchup between Houston and UCF, with the Cougars leading the series 21-10. Houston earned a pair of regular-season victories over UCF last season, as the Knights managed only 101 combined points.
Houston (13-3, 5-0) has a nine-game winning streak against UCF. That dates to the 2019-20 season, when both teams competed in the American Athletic Conference.
The Knights have played well at home this season — a blowout loss by 51 points to then-No. 7 Kansas on Jan. 5 notwithstanding — but coach Johnny Dawkins’ team might be catching the Cougars at an inopportune time.
J’wan Roberts scored a season-high 22 points on 10-of-13 shooting from the field, and L.J. Cryer (18 points) and Tampa native Emanuel Sharp (14 points) combined to make eight 3-pointers in Wednesday’s 70-54 home victory over West Virginia, extending the Cougars’ winning streak to nine.
“The thing that I like [about] what our guys are doing, they’re staying aggressive,” said coach Kelvin Sampson, whose team went 11 of 26 from long range on Wednesday. “They’re shooting when they’re open. They’re pushing. … We really tried [against West Virginia] to be better in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock.”
In typical Houston fashion, the defense continues to stymie opponents. The Cougars rank first in Division I in scoring defense (54.2 points a game) and scoring margin (22.4) entering play Friday, allowing 50.2 points per game during the current winning streak that started with a 79-51 victory over Butler on Dec. 7.
–Field Level Media
