{"id":194765,"date":"2026-03-17T10:44:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T10:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/194765\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T10:44:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T10:44:32","slug":"ucf-goes-to-the-ncaa-tournament-for-first-time-since-2018-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/194765\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF goes to the NCAA Tournament for first time since 2018-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

After a seven-year absence, the UCF<\/a> men\u2019s basketball team is returning to the NCAA\u00a0 Tournament.<\/p>\n

The Knights earned an at-large bid to the 68-team field on Sunday and will be headed to the East Region. It\u2019s their sixth overall appearance in the NCAA Tournament, but the first since the 2018-19 season.<\/p>\n

Tenth-seeded UCF (21-11, 9-9 Big 12) will face seventh-seeded UCLA (23-11, 13-7 Big Ten) in the first-round matchup at the Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia on Friday (7:25 p.m., TBS). The winner will face either second-seeded UConn or No. 15 seed Furman in the second round on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re always excited to hear your name called,\u201d UCF coach Johnny Dawkins said. \u201cIt\u2019s such an honor to be invited to this tournament. It\u2019s the best tournament in sport, in my opinion, so having this opportunity is great.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked so hard, JB [Jordan Burks] and I personally, we\u2019ve been here since May of last year, just working, just grinding and hoping we get the opportunity to prove what type of team, what type of players we are to the world and this is the biggest stage it is,\u201d added point guard Themus Fulks, who previously played in the NCAA Tournament while at Louisiana during the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n

To compete in the NCAA Tournament is nothing short of miraculous, given where this team started back in the fall.<\/p>\n

UCF returned zero production from last season and signed 13 newcomers, many of whom arrived via the transfer portal. The team was picked to finish 14th out of 16 teams in the Big 12, according to the preseason coaches\u2019 poll.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve said it all season long, how proud I am of this team. I saw something this summer, just how competitive they were, and I carried it over throughout the season. So that made it really special, and to see our young people have these dreams that are made,\u201d Dawkins said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re a young player, you dream of having an opportunity to play in the NCAA Tournament. So, to see a number of these players who\u2019ve never had this opportunity, it\u2019s their first time and some of the guys who\u2019ve had multiple opportunities, it never gets old, with such a special feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fulks isn\u2019t the only player with previous experience in the Big Dance.<\/p>\n

Guard Riley Kugel made it to the NCAA Tournament while at Florida (2022-24) and Mississippi State (2024-25). Forward Devan Cambridge also played in the tournament while at Arizona State (2022-23), as did Burks, who didn\u2019t see any action during Kentucky\u2019s run in the 2023-24 season.<\/p>\n

There was plenty of nervousness surrounding Knight Nation over the past few weeks.<\/p>\n

After a dominating 97-84 win<\/a> at then-No. 19 BYU on Feb. 24, UCF ended the season on a three-game losing streak. The Knights dropped a pair of home games to Baylor and Oklahoma State before being routed on the road at West Virginia.<\/p>\n

Despite its season-ending struggles, UCF earned a first-round bye in the Big 12 Tournament. The Knights outlasted Cincinnati, 66-65 in overtime in their second-round matchup before being thumped by top-seeded Arizona in the quarterfinals, 81-59.<\/p>\n

To their credit, the Knights had a strong resume featuring five Quad 1 wins over Texas A&M, Kansas, Texas Tech, BYU and TCU.<\/p>\n

UCF is 1-5 overall in NCAA Tournament games, with its last victory coming against VCU in the first round of the 2018-19 tourney.<\/p>\n

Please find me on X, Bluesky or Instagram @osmattmurschel. Email: mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com<\/a>. Sign up for the Sentinel\u2019s Knights Weekly<\/a> newsletter for a roundup of all our UCF coverage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a seven-year absence, the UCF men\u2019s basketball team is returning to the NCAA\u00a0 Tournament. The Knights earned…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":194766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[111,28,114,1335,139,141,140,76046,110,3865],"class_list":["post-194765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-latest-headlines","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=194765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/194765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/194766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=194765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=194765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=194765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}