Their words; not mine. Those words belong to the UCF Knights and their coach as they prepare for tonight's C-USA home game against the visiting Memphis Tigers.
Since C-USA's (catastrophic) reshuffling, Memphis has ruled the roost. UAB has been respectable, notching a tourney upset win over Kentucky in 2004, and Houston appears to be a pretty good ballclub in 2009, but for the most part it has been slightly less than the WCC; Gonzaga and the little guys. Same story with Memphis.
Only the ever-fading memory of Louisville, Cincinnati, DePaul, Marquette and company keeps Conference USA from being called what it really is; the fifth or sixth strongest of the "mid-major" conferences. A footnote on college basketball's periphery.
UCF wants to change that. They have built a new state of the art arena that seats five digits. They boast the nation's sixth largest undergraduate enrollment, placing them in the same league as Florida, Michigan, Ohio State and Texas.
Except, of course, on the playing fields.
The Knights hope they can begin to change that tonight at 5pm in Orlando. The Tigers are not as daunting as they have been in year's past, but are still clearly the class of the league. UCF boast's one the conference's top players in Jermaine Taylor (over 22ppg), but clearly lacks the athleticism and depth to play with the Tigers. In UCF's other brief dalliances with the "big-time" this season they have been summarily dismissed; a 28 point loss to Mississippi and and equally lopsided defeat to the "rival" Florida Gators.
The biggest game in UCF history?? Doubtful. It becomes the biggest only if they do the improbable tonight; win.
Otherwise, be careful what you ask for. In calling the abnormal amount of attention to the magnitude of the game, they run an interesting risk. Reminding their fans just how far away from BIG games they still truly are.
Is today the day? UCF fans (and marketing department) sure hope so!.
Blue Balls....that's what UCF gives their fans. They are the biggest tease in the history of college sports. For what seems like the 30th time in the past 8 years a UCF sports team hangs close and even leads a big time opponent only to let things slip away by the end of the game. Last year it was Villanova, Kansas State, UConn, and Mississippi. This year Memphis. It's frustrating but being 100% honest they played really well against a much longer Memphis team.
ReplyDeleteA fantastic crowd of nearly 10,000 fans dressed in black packed the new arena to lead on their team. UCF was up by 1 at the half lead by Conference USA player of the year front runner (he should be at least)Jermaine Taylor.
The second half got off to a great start with UCF getting a 7 point lead 4 minutes into the half. However at that point Memphis put the defensive clamps on UCF and sufficated them to the point where UCF went 11 minutes without a field goal. When all was said and done Memphis did just enough to win in what is surprisingly turning into a tough place to win.
If UCF can somehow keep up attendance of 6,000 plus per game then the new arena will certainly grow into a hated place to travel to. UCF has a very young team with 7 freshman on the roster and most of them getting a good amount of run each game. You wouldn't think that a team like this could compeat but it certainly looked like they could hang for a 4th or 5th place finish in CUSA.