Let the waiting begin, though UCF’s men’s basketball team certainly helped its own March Madness cause by avoiding a one-and-done at this week’s Big 12 tournament.
The Knights staged a late comeback to send Cincinnati packing but hardly troubled the conference’s top seed on March 12. Arizona built a 27-point, first-half lead and never looked back in an 81-57 win at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Mo.
Fifth-year point guard Themus Fulks scored a team-high 14 points but committed six turnovers for UCF, which takes a 21-11 record into Selection Sunday. Senior guard Riley Kugel logged only 14 minutes due to foul trouble, and sophomore center John Bol sustained a chest injury.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi listed UCF among his last four byes into the 68-team NCAA Tournament field prior to Thursday’s action. USA TODAY has the Knights as a 10-seed, and CBS Sports dropped them to an 11-seed.
Here are three reasons why the Knights might have done just enough to go dancing.
UCF basketball picked up 5 Quad 1 wins
First and foremost, UCF’s tournament résumé features five Quad 1 victories according to the NCAA’s NET rankings, most recently its neutral-site win over Cincinnati.
The Knights defeated three ranked opponents during Big 12 play — Kansas, Texas Tech and BYU — and picked off Texas A&M in November for a signature win during an 11-1 non-conference run. The three ranked wins tied a single-season program record set in 2023-24.
In addition, UCF posted a respectable 6-3 record in Quad 2 games, headlined by home wins over TCU and Cincinnati. It avoided “bad” losses in the bottom two quadrants, though suffering regular-season sweeps to Oklahoma State and West Virginia knocked the Knights down a peg or two.
According to ESPN metrics, UCF ranks 37th in strength of record, a measure on how difficult a team’s win-loss record is to achieve.
UCF’s adjusted offensive efficiency ranks among top-40
UCF struggled mightily to make shots against Cincinnati until the late stages of the second half, but its overall offensive efficiency ranks among the top-40 nationally.
Per the KenPom ratings, the Knights average 121.3 points per 100 possessions, good for 38th in Division I. They are sixth in the Big 12 in scoring (81.5 ppg), seventh in field goal percentage (46.9%) and third in 3-point shooting (37.1%).
Three-point shooting, however, was a major issue at the Big 12 tournament. UCF made only six of its 45 attempts.
Anchored by senior Jamichael Stillwell and sophomore John Bol in the frontcourt, UCF generates plenty of second-chance opportunities by pulling down 12.2 offensive rebounds per game.
The chasing NCAA Tournament bubble pack did not help itself
CBS Sports insider Jon Rothstein opened Thursday’s “Inside College Basketball Now” podcast by declaring, “This is unequivocally the worst bubble that I have ever seen.”
The bid stealers UCF might have had to worry about, especially if it lost to Cincinnati, simply did not take advantage of the opportunity. Stanford, California, SMU and Virginia Tech exited the ACC Tournament in the early rounds; Texas, Oklahoma State and Indiana did the same in their respective conferences.
Teams to monitor in the coming days include Auburn and Oklahoma in the SEC, Seton Hall in the Big East, South Florida in the American, VCU in the Atlantic 10 and both San Diego State and New Mexico in the Mountain West.
Miami (Ohio)’s surprising first-round loss to UMass likely means the Mid-American Conference will get multiple bids for the first time since 1999. The RedHawks went 31-0 during the regular season and were the last remaining unbeaten team in Division I.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF Knights basketball makes case for NCAA Tournament at-large bid