ORLANDO — The UCF men’s basketball team eared its second victory in as many contests to tipoff the 2024-25 campaign, posting a 75-68 win over Purdue Fort Wayne on Friday night.
“We beat a very good team, I’ve watched the way Jon (Coffman) coaches them, they’ve been very successful and it was a new type of opponent we were playing,” said UCF Head Coach Johnny Dawkins, who picked up his 150th victory at UCF. “It was great for a guys to be in this type of game again, a close contest where we were gonna have to make plays and get stops on the defensive end, and we were able to step up in that moment.”
A number of performers jumped off the stat sheet. Jordan Ivy-Curry led the scoring with 18 points while Keyshawn Hall was the first Knight to earn a double-double on the season, scoring 14 points and hauling in 12 rebounds. Rookie Moustapha Thiam was brilliant again, this time on the offensive side of things, earning 13 points and grabbing six boards. While not reaching double-digits, Darius Johnson had seven assists to go with his seven points.
The stat sheet didn’t have many tallies to start the contest as there was just one basket made through the first six minutes of play. Purdue Fort Wayne added their second triple with 13:56 left on the clock, making it 6-0 in favor of the visitors, a squad picked to win the Horizon League this season.
UCF missed its first nine shots on the evening, including four of which were from three. The Knights finally got on the board with a pair of free throws from Hall with 13:37 to play in the first. UCF found its stride after that, hitting its next four shots. Johnson tossed in a layup, followed by a dunk from Rokas Jocius to level the score and a Benny Williams layup for the lead at 8-6. An Ivy-Curry steal led to a quick pass and a driving dunk by Nils Machowski to really get UCF’s momentum rolling.
Machowski contributed a free throw and a triple to give UCF a lead at 16-10 with 8:29 left in the period. A Thiam free throw made it 17-10, which was the largest lead of the first half. The advantage was again seven at 23-16 with just over five minutes remaining, but from there Purdue Fort Wayne chipped away, cutting its deficit to just one at halftime.
The Mastodons came out of the break firing, scoring the first six points of the second half to take a five-point lead, forcing UCF to burn a timeout. The Knights quickly erased the brief deficit, as Johnson drove in for a tough layup, followed by a Dallan ‘Deebo’ Coleman triple, his first three-points as a Knight.
The next 10 minutes of game action acted like a metronome, as anytime a Mastodon would score, a Knight swayed the momentum back like clockwork to either tie or cut into the deficit. UCF drew even five times in that 10-minute span but were unable to jump in front.
The Knights finally drew ahead by one with 8:20 after a Hall made free throw with 8:40 to play, but saw Purdue Fort Wayne go back up by four with just under seven minutes remaining. Thiam hit a beautiful hook shot to slice the deficit back to 64-60 before he hit another jumper to tie things up with 5:46 to play.
Ivy-Curry was the one to put the Knights ahead for good, driving in for a layup with 3:45 left. Thiam added another clutch two points 40 seconds later. Purdue Fort Wayne tossed in a layup to cut things back to two, but that was the closest they got the rest of the way. Johnson, Ivy-Curry and Hall were responsible for the final five points of the game in the 75-68 win.
UCF’s defense was in lockdown mode in the final moments of action as the Mastodons missed nine of their final 10 shots of the contest. The defensive side of the ball was solid the entirety of the evening, forcing 13 PFW turnovers. The Knights snatched eight steals on Friday night.
Up Next:
The Knights met their first in-state foe of the season as they welcomed Florida Atlantic to The City Beautiful on Tuesday and will take a week off before hosting Tennessee Tech on Tuesday (Nov. 19) for a 7 p.m. tipoff on ESPN+.
Here is the box score:
UCF 75, Purdue Fort Wayne 68
Purdue Fort Wayne (1-1)
Quinton Morton-Robertson 5-11 0-0 11, Eric Mulder 5-5 1-1 11, Jalen Jackson 4-12 2-3 10, Rasheed Bello 3-12 0-0 9, Maximus Nelson 2-6 0-0 6, Corey Hadnot II 4-9 1-1 9, Trey Lewis 3-7 0-0 7, Deangelo Elisee 1-1 0-0 3, Chandler Cuthrell 1-2 0-2 2. Totals: 28-65 4-7 68.
UCF (2-0)
Jordan Ivy-Curry 5-12 8-8 18, Keyshawn Hall 3-12 8-9 14, Moustapha Thiam 5-10 3-4 13, Darius Johnson 3-8 1-2 7, Dallan “Deebo" Coleman 1-4 0-2 3, Benny Williams 4-6 0-1 8, Nils Machowski 2-2 1-2 6, JJ Taylor 1-3 2-2 4, Rokas Jocius 1-2 0-0 2, Dior Johnson 0-0 0-0 0. Totals: 25-59 23-30 75.
Halftime _ UCF 34, PFW 33. 3-point field goals _ PFW 8-29 (Bello 3-9, Nelson 2-6, Morton-Robertson 1-6, Lewis 1-3, Elisee 1-1, 0-1, Hadnot 0-2, Jackson 0-1, Cuthrell 0-1); UCF 2-20 (Coleman 1-3, Machowski 1-1, Ivy-Curry 0-6, Hall 0-3, Da. Johnson 0-3, Taylor 0-2, Thiam 0-1, Jocius 0-1). Team fouls _ PFW 20; UCF 11. Fouled out _ PFW (Mulder). Technical fouls _ none. Rebounds _ PFW 30 (Jackson 7, Mulder 6); UCF 44 (Hall 12, Thiam, Williams 6 each). Turnovers _ PFW 13; UCF 13. Assists _ PFW 8 (Jackson 3); UCF 13 (Da. Johnson 7, Ivy-Curry 3). Steals _ PFW 4 (Bello 2); UCF 8 (Da. Johnson, Ivy-Curry 3 each). Blocked shots _ PFW 3 (Jackson, Nelson, Elisee); UCF 3 (Thiam 2).
