Jon Killen has had success running the offense this season for the Mustangs. (John Schreiber)
After a forgettable start to the conference, the Mustangs hope to turn things around in Orlando. SMU is 0-2 in Conference USA and has a 2-3 record on the road.
The Mustangs will take on a UCF team that is 1-1 in the conference and is undefeated in eight games at home. The Golden Knights will be returning home after a four game road trip where they went 2-2.
The Mustangs are coming off their second two-game losing streak of the season. The first was at the end of January when SMU lost to Oklahoma and North Carolina A&T in the course of three days. SMU answered those losses with a 13-point victory against Texas-Pan American.
This time, however, the Mustangs will have to get it done on the road. Being away from Moody hasn’t worked well for the Mustangs who have lost their last two road games.
The bright spot for the Mustangs continues to be the play of Ike Ofoegbu who leads the team in scoring with 12.4 points a game and is second in rebounding with 7.1 boards a game, just 0.2 behind team leader Donatas Rackauskas.
The bench has also played a big part in SMU’s success this season. Brian Epps and Dez Willingham have made their marks as reliable sources of production off the bench.
Epps averages just over nine points a game, and Willingham has come on strong as of late and has one of the biggest shots of the season, the game winning three-point shot to beat TCU at the buzzer.
Bamba Fall also continues to improve on every aspect of his game. In Saturday’s loss to Houston, Fall collected his first double-double of the season, and against Southern Miss tied his career-high total in blocks with six.
John Killen has shown an offensive side to his game. In the last six SMU games, Killen averages 10.6 points a game and over five assists, but there is one setback. Killen also averages four turnovers a game, which is about a quarter of the team’s total in that time span.
This Mustang team has already proven that they are a different team from years past. The 11-5 start is the best for SMU since 2000-01 and the Mustangs are 7-2 at home.
But SMU will need to continue its hot start if it wants to improve upon its 4-10 conference record of last season. That could start Wednesday night in Orlando.
New Head Coach Matt Doherty has just as much experience with the Golden Knights as the Mustangs do.
The only encounter SMU has with UCF is last season when the teams joined C-USA. SMU won that game 77-55 in Moody Coliseum.
This season the Mustangs will have to do without the 23 points they got from graduated Bryan Hopkins, including three three-point shots. But Devon Pearson also had a solid performance in last season’s match-up, scoring 17 points and grabbing 10 rebounds.
Doherty played UCF in the 2005-06 season when he coached at Florida Atlantic. Doherty’s Owls defeated the Golden Knights 59-54 at home.
SMU center Donatas Rackauskas (left) goes for a layup past Houston Baptist’s Matt Autenrieth (center) and Emanuel Willis (right). (John Schreiber)
