{"id":228676,"date":"2026-04-12T14:11:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/228676\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T14:11:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T14:11:06","slug":"ucf-hoops-lands-first-transfer-commitment-of-2026-27-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/228676\/","title":{"rendered":"UCF hoops lands first transfer commitment of 2026-27 season"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/tag\/ucf-knights\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UCF<\/a> men\u2019s basketball has landed its first transfer commitment for the 2026-27 season in former Florida Gulf Coast University forward Isaiah Malone.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-8, 175-pound Malone averaged 10.5 points and 5.8 rebounds, while connecting on 59% of his shots in 34 games (27 starts) for the Eagles last season. He was named the Atlantic Sun Defensive Player of the Year for a team that was 16-18 overall, including 8-10 in the A-Sun.<\/p>\n<p>Before his time at FGCU, Malone played for two seasons at St. Francis (Ind.), an NAIA school, where he averaged 16.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per game as a sophomore, while shooting 67.3% from the field.<\/p>\n<p>A native of LaGrange, Ind., Malone led the conference in blocks (64) and was ninth in the league in offensive rebounds (61).<\/p>\n<p>He joins a roster that features a pair of senior guards, Arturo Dean and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2026\/04\/11\/ucf-guard-carmelo-pacheco-returning-to-knight-in-2026-27\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carmelo Pacheco<\/a>, alongside incoming freshmen Christian Gibson and Donovan Williams.<\/p>\n<p>Pacheco becomes the first player to announce his decision to return next season.<\/p>\n<p>Guards Chris Johnson and Poopha Warakulnukroh announced their decisions to enter the transfer portal.<\/p>\n<p>UCF is coming off a 21-12 season in which the Knights made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2018-19 season.<\/p>\n<p>The Knights have to replace five players whose eligibility expired, led by Themus Fulks, Riley Kugel, Jamichael Stillwell, Devan Cambridge and George Beale Jr., who accounted for 71% of their scoring production (56.9 points per game) this past season.<\/p>\n<p>Matt Murschel can be reached at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.orlandosentinel.com\/2026\/04\/12\/ucf-mens-basketball-lands-first-transfer-commitment-of-2026-27-season\/mailto:mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">mmurschel@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UCF men\u2019s basketball has landed its first transfer commitment for the 2026-27 season in former Florida Gulf Coast&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228677,"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-228676","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\/228676","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=228676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}