Aubrey Dawkins has taken countless shots throughout his extensive basketball career, but there’s one shot that continues to haunt him to this day. Nearly seven years have passed, yet Dawkins — now 30 — can recall that moment as if it were yesterday.
“I recall the whole game honestly, but of course, the last play … I just tell myself, wins and losses aren’t decided by just one play,” Dawkins recently told the Orlando Sentinel.
The game Dawkins is referring to is the second round matchup between UCF and top-seeded Duke in the 2018-19 NCAA Tournament.
The Blue Devils were led by Zion Williamson, who would go on to become the first overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft. The Knights, meanwhile, were heavy underdogs, but managed to go toe-to-toe with Duke, with the game coming down to the last shot.
With UCF trailing 77-76 with 8 seconds left, guard B.J. Taylor’s driving layup at the basket bounced off the rim and into Dawkins’ hands, who put it back up on the glass where it hung for a brief second before rolling off the left side and into the hands of a Blue Devils defender.
Dawkins finished with a team-high 32 points, while Taylor had 15 and Williamson 32.
UCF finished the season 24-9, the best single-season mark since the 2004-05 season.
“I can’t let that hang on me as much as it has, but naturally, as a competitor, you do,” said Dawkins. “I recognize and my team recognizes, that one play doesn’t define our season or who we are as a team. If it goes in great, but it didn’t and that was what fate had for us.”
It would be the last time that the Knights would qualify for the NCAA Tournament.
Seven seasons later, UCF is on the cusp of returning to the 68-team tournament field as the Knights wrap up their third season in the Big 12.
Dawkins, the son of coach Johnny Dawkins, would go on to play in the NBA G League and for more than a dozen professional teams in Europe. He’s currently playing for APU Udine, a team based out of Udine, Italy.
Taylor is constantly reminded of the game, particularly around March Madness.
His phone is inundated with screen grabs and videos posted on his social media feeds. As a college basketball analyst for CBS Sports and ESPN networks, it comes up quite often.
“Here’s how I described it: It was a great 39 minutes of college basketball,” Taylor said. “It was a fantastic 39 minutes of college ball, just absolutely spectacular until the last minute.”
Looking back on his final shot, Taylor recalls every step with precision.
“I shoot the floater, it doesn’t go in, and then Aubrey flies in for the tip,” described Taylor. “I’ve covered hundreds of college basketball games, played in a number of them, I don’t know if I’ve seen a tip missed like the way his ball missed, in terms of him hitting it and tapping it, and it’s spinning off the side.”
“There wasn’t a single person in that building that wasn’t holding their breath, including every Duke fan, because, as you see it played, they had no idea what was going to happen,” recalled Marc Daniels. Nobody knows the ins and outs of UCF basketball better than Daniels, who has spent more than three decades as the radio voice of UCF athletics.
UCF guard BJ Taylor (1) drives down the baseline while defended by Duke’s Cam Reddish (2) during the first half of the second-round game of the 2018-19 NCAA Tournament in Columbia, S.C., on Sunday, March 24, 2019. (AP File Photo/Richard Shiro)
Leaving a legacy
Taylor believes the nexus of UCF’s magical tournament run began the prior season, when injuries limited Taylor, Dawkins and 7-foot-6 Tacko Fall, as the Knights finished 19-13 and sixth in the American Athletic Conference.
With everyone back and healthy, expectations for the following season were high.
“It was awesome for us just to finally have Tacko, myself and Aubrey on the floor at one time,” said Taylor. “In our locker room, we had big expectations. We had tournament expectations from Day 1 and that carried over to the floor.”
The roster featured plenty of experience with Dawkins, Taylor and Fall, but there was also senior Chad Brown, junior Terrell Allen, sophomore center Collin Smith and guard Dayon Griffin.
“We knew we had the talent and we were excited to get everybody on the floor in a real game, because we had been practicing against each other so much in previous years. So we knew we had the ability,” added Taylor.
“Each one of those guys brought something on the mental side of the game,” added Daniels. “Aubrey was always cool and calm and never showed a ton of emotion. B.J. was a unique leader. Then there was Tacko, who didn’t really speak loudly but made up for it with his size. Collin was a very quiet guy and Terrell Allen was like a silent assassin. Chad Brown was the most vocal guy and had a ton of respect on the team.”
As a walk-on freshman, Levy Renaud vividly remembers his teammates’ maturity and focus. He also recalled how coach Johnny Dawkins, who is still UCF’s coach, took the initiative to lay a solid foundation for the team, even before the season had kicked off.
“That was one thing that Coach Dawkins first said to us when we got on campus: what do you want your legacy to be after you’re done here at UCF?” said Renaud, who serves as coordinator for the ChargeOn Fund and Varsity Knights.
Added Taylor: “Leave a legacy, that was on everything in the locker room. He would say, “Leave a legacy,” and then he would always remind us that we want to leave a place better than we found it. That was our sole motivation.”
The Knights won 13 of their first 15 games that season before dropping games to Wichita State, Memphis and Houston. Still, the team finished with a 13-5 mark in the AAC, winning seven of its last nine regular-season games before losing to the Tigers in the conference tournament.
Said Daniels: “It was a fun group that you could tell by the time you got to the middle part of the conference schedule that UCF was going to be pretty good.”
UCF put together one of its best defensive seasons under Dawkins, holding teams to 39% shooting from the floor, including 31% from 3-point range.
Streeter Lecka / Getty Images
UCF center Tacko Fall celebrates a basket against Duke during the first half of the second-round game of the 2019 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Colonial Life Arena on March 24, 2019, in Columbia, South Carolina. (File photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Facing a tall task
As UCF players gathered at Burger U for Selection Sunday, the Knights weren’t sure where they would wind up in the 68-team field. Turns out, they ended up right where they wanted to be.
UCF earned a 9th-seed as an at-large bid, heading to Washington, D.C., where the Knights would face VCU in the first round. But a possible second-round matchup excited the players even more.
“We weren’t overlooking anyone, but all due respect to VCU, we saw Duke and a big part of it was we got to get to that game. Yeah, I don’t care who’s in our way to get to that Duke game. We’ve got to get there,” said Taylor.
Everybody was familiar with the connection between the Duke program and Johnny Dawkins. Dawkins was an All-American player with the Blue Devils under coach Mike Krzyzewski and would later join the legendary coach on his coaching staff.
UCF would go on to trounce VCU, 73-58, before facing top-seeded Duke in the second round.
“My favorite memory of the NCAA Tournament would probably be slapping a sticker on the board when we won the first game against VCU,” said Renaud.
It was the program’s first win in the NCAA Tournament.
UCF quickly turned its attention to the Blue Devils, who were the overwhelming favorites of the tournament. Yet, somehow that didn’t seem to matter to the Knights.
“There were so many story lines to peel from,” said Taylor. “You had the freshman Goliath versus the veteran David. We were the older, more experienced team, but we were the underdog David.”
“When we were doing the scout in preparation for that Duke game, Coach Dawkins never made me so confident and the team so confident that we were going to win that game,” added Renaud.
The buildup for the game was unimaginable, according to Daniels.
“This is my 31st year and the moment of the jump ball between Tacko and Zion Williamson is the most intense, hyped moment I’ve ever been a part of. That building was exploding,” said Daniels. “It’s the late Sunday game, it’s the main crew at CBS and the nation is watching. You cannot ask for a better moment.”
It was a back-and-forth affair with upstart UCF answering every challenge presented to them by the Blue Devils before coming down to that final minute of play and the final shot.
Duke would move on in the tournament before eventually losing to Michigan State in the Elite Eight, 68-67. Williamson (1), Barnett (3) and Cam Reddish (10) would be first-round selections in the 2019 NBA Draft a few months later.
Aubrey Dawkins, Taylor and Fall would go undrafted, with each finding their own paths in basketball.
Lasting impact
It’s been seven years since UCF last qualified for the NCAA Tournament and a lot has happened during that time. The transfer portal, name, image and likeness (NIL) and revenue sharing have all impacted the college landscape.
Not to mention the Knights made the move from the AAC to the Big 12 in 2023.
“If you had asked us when we left, would it take seven years to get back to the NCAA Tournament, we would have said no,” said Taylor. “But nobody anticipated so much would change in college athletics in that period of time.”
“This is one of those moments that you will remember forever, whether it goes good or whether it goes bad,” added Aubrey Dawkins.
Even in defeat, many of those associated with that team still recall lessons.
“Coach Dawkins always told us how much winning mattered and how much winning affects every part of your life, whether it’s just basketball or other things in your life,” said Renauld, who spent four seasons with the Knights. “It was true.”
Aubrey Dawkins is still chasing those moments on the basketball court; however, that final shot isn’t far from his mind.
“I guess I’m trying to right that wrong of missing that layup,” he said. “I want to remember that moment. Sometimes I envision a different outcome, but from here on out, when those types of moments come up, I want to make sure I’m victorious.”
Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com. Sign up for the Sentinel’s Knights Weekly newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.