UCF basketball takeaways: March Madness bid secured with Cincinnati win?

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Staging a late rally against its arch rival, UCF hopes it wrapped up an at-large bid into the NCAA Tournament with a pivotal rubber-match victory in Kansas City, Mo.

Riley Kugel sparked an 8-0 run over the final 2:06 of regulation, and Jamichael Stillwell and John Bol contributed four points apiece in overtime as the Knights defeated Cincinnati 66-65 in the second round of the Big 12 men's basketball tournament on March 11.

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The eighth-seeded Knights (21-10, 9-9) advanced to meet top-seeded Arizona at 3 p.m. March 12.

UCF trailed by as many as 12 in the second half, held to a 33.8% shooting performance by Cincinnati's stingy defense. Stillwell collected six of the Knights' 18 offensive rebounds, and UCF dominated the scoring margin on second chances (17-3) and inside the paint (38-10).

"I thought our guys had to fight back on numerous occasions, and they were able to do it. But this team has done this all season," Knights coach Johnny Dawkins said. "Their competitive spirit showed in the summer, and it showed again tonight — just their will to win.

"Our guys just stepped up and made the plays down the stretch of the game when they had to make them."

ESPN's Joe Lunardi considered UCF among the last four at-large teams into the NCAA Tournament field at the start of play Wednesday, while Cincinnati (18-15, 9-9) was listed among the first four out. The Knights improved to 5-7 in Quad 1 games with a neutral-site win over Cincy, sitting at No. 46 in the NCAA's NET rankings.

Here are three takeaways from a potentially season-saving comeback in K.C.

Cincinnati implodes in final 2 minutes with 3 costly turnovers

For as monumental a comeback it was for UCF, it might have been an even bigger implosion for Cincinnati.

Day Day Thomas' pair of free throws gave the Bearcats a 58-50 lead with 2:17 to play. Jamichael Stillwell hit a short jumper moments later to make it a two-possession game ahead of a 30-second timeout.

From there, the Knights switched to a full-court press and scrambled Cincinnati's rhythm.

Jizzle James lost the handle of the ball shortly after crossing the midcourt stripe, and Jordan Burks converted a double-clutch layup off glass. On the ensuing possession, James was whistled for a 10-second violation before Bearcats coach Wes Miller could call timeout.

Kugel followed screens from Stillwell and Bol to bank in a runner to cut the deficit to two. Miller used a timeout to settle his team down, but Burks tipped Thomas' cross-court pass after receiving the inbound and Kugel finished a left-hand layup to knot the score at 58 apiece.

Cincinnati committed 18 turnovers in the game, but none as costly as those three in succession. According to ESPN Analytics, the Bearcats had a 95.1% chance to win with 2:08 left.

"We have a multiple-defense-playing team, so we can always change strategies throughout the game," Dawkins said. "We felt, down by eight and coming down the stretch, we needed to do more in the full court and we needed to do more pressing to see if we could speed them up, get some turnovers. Fortunately, we were able to do that."

Still, the Bearcats had a chance for the win in regulation when Burks' 3-point attempt rattled out in the final 30 seconds. Initially, Miller opted not to call one of his two remaining timeouts, but his team stalled in the backcourt.

Officials granted the timeout with 0.8 seconds on the clock, and Thomas came up well short on the 3-pointer at the buzzer.

"We hope every game that the shots go down, makes it easier for us. But at the end of the day, we've got to hang our hat on defense," fifth-year point guard Themus Fulks said. "And it's March, and we knew that Cincinnati was hungry. They were hot."

Moustapha Thiam shines in 3rd matchup against UCF

UCF fans heckled Moustapha Thiam, and Cincinnati assistant coach Mamadou N'Diaye, when they returned to Orlando in January. The former Knights center set a then-career-high with 24 points, but the Knights prevailed 73-72.

Thiam starred against his old time again Wednesday with 18 points, 16 rebounds and five blocks for his seventh double-double of his sophomore campaign. He made three 3-pointers and altered several other UCF attempts at the rim.

His frontcourt running mate Baba Miller, on the other hand, had perhaps his worst outing of the season. The All-Big 12 second-team selection went 0-for-6 from the field, scored just four points and committed seven turnovers before fouling out in overtime.

Miller, who previously played for Florida State and Florida Atlantic, averaged a double-double (13.3 points, 10.3 rebounds per game) entering the day.

Will this win be enough to seal UCF's NCAA Tournament return?

About an hour after the game wrapped up, Fulks posted onto X, formerly known as Twitter, "let's dance" with a dancing emoji.

Had the Knights not rallied, they would have had to sweat out Selection Sunday. The win, though, could be just enough to seal a return to the NCAA Tournament after a seven-year absence.

Their résumé features some true highlights — ranked home wins over Kansas and Texas Tech, a non-conference road win over SEC bubble team Texas A&M and a dominant effort away from home against then-ranked BYU.

UCF did some damage to its reputation with a three-game slide to close the regular season, though. They squandered seemingly easy matchups against Baylor and Oklahoma State before a thrashing at West Virginia on March 6.

In addition to handling their own business against a desperate Cincinnati, UCF received some help as other bubble teams fell. SMU exited the ACC tournament with a loss to a Louisville squad missing star guard Mikel Brown Jr., and Santa Clara could not hang on against Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference final.

Fifth-year head coach Miller attempted to make his case for the Bearcats following the loss, telling the Cincinnati Enquirer's Scott Springer, "If it's about the best teams, at this point, we're one of the best teams in the country. We're an NCAA Tournament team. If it's about overall résumé, I'm sure you could make some arguments that we're not. But we've won seven out of our last 10 Big 12 games. When's the last time somebody won seven out of 10 in the Big 12 and didn't play in the NCAA Tournament? Honestly."

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: UCF basketball wins Big 12 thriller vs Cincinnati Bearcats in overtime

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