Walk back in time to March 22nd last year when the University of Central Florida Knights took down Illinois 68-58 at the CFE Arena to advance to the NIT Final Four. A sold-out crowd of over 10,000 greeted the Knights that evening and willed them on to the decisive victory.
That was the first sellout in the ten-year history of the arena and the showing begged the question: Is this just a flash in the pan turnout or a step towards more consistent engagement for the UCF basketball fan base? The support for a team that was not even bound for the NCAA Tournament would have to indicate similarly-sized crowds were possible down the road.
Fast-forward to the present day and year two of the Johnny Dawkins era may have ended Friday night in the quarterfinals of the American Athletic Conference tournament with a loss to the Houston Cougars. The event was hosted in the Knights backyard in downtown Orlando at the Amway Center, but one could not tell that the program dubbed "Orlando's Hometown Team" had the support of the locals.
At best, a few hundred UCF fans were scattered amidst the crowd for each of the games contested this week at Amway. As the Knights tipped off on Friday, Wichita State fans that were left over from the previous quarterfinal game likely out-numbered the "home" crowd 2-1.
University Of Central Florida Fan Base Lacking At AAC Games
If you're keeping track at home, Wichita, Kansas is 1,400 miles from the arena while the UCF campus lies just 15 miles to the east.
When I asked senior A.J. Davis about the lack of a crowd after the loss to Houston, he was cordial and political with his response.
"Yeah, I think our crowd does a great job," said Davis. "If it was up to me, I would like to see the whole thing packed with UCF fans, the whole entire arena. But our fans are loyal and have supported me and this team as long as I've been here. So we have great fans, and I think they always do a great job of supporting us and showing us love."
One has to respect Davis for taking the high road and saying the right thing. If Dawkins or star point guard B.J. Taylor were asked the same question, I think they would have given a similar response.
That is just the nature of this UCF basketball program under Dawkins. They are a stand-up group of guys that give maximum effort on the court every night despite the obstacles they have faced through two seasons.
I will say what they were not able to: This team deserves better.
In Dawkins first season, UCF had just seven scholarship players yet made it all the way to the NIT Final Four backed by the hot shooting of Matt Williams. Hopes were high for 2018, with CBS Sports ranking the Knights #29 in the preseason and stating that they would make the NCAA Tournament easily.
Then catastrophe hit before the season even started when Dawkins' son and star transfer, Aubrey, was ruled out for the year. Taylor, a preseason All-AAC pick missed the first 16 games with an injury as well and shortly after he returned last year's American Defensive Player of the Year Tacko Fall had his season prematurely ended by injury.
Most teams would pack it in and say wait till next year, but these Knights kept fighting. They beat a ranked Alabama team on the road in non-conference play, finished .500 in the American and won 19 games overall, putting themselves in position to potentially get a second straight bid into the NIT.
Despite the tremendous on-court effort, UCF averaged just 4,636 fans at home per game, a number that ranked seventh in the AAC.
When I asked on Twitter last night what it was going to take for this team to get more support, the responses were varied but universally pathetic. The chief gripes were centered around the team having a boring offense and not being consistent enough.
Let me get this right: If the tough get going, Knights fans get packing? This is how the black and gold faithful want to represent a university with unlimited potential and boundless opportunities?
Certainly, there are good UCF fans out there. Those are the people that Davis was alluding to in his quote and that I saw throughout CFE Arena this season.
There just are not enough of them and something has to be done to bring other supporters out of hiding. There have been indications throughout the years that a Knights basketball fanbase does exist no matter how fairweather it may be.
Observers could point to the Illinois game last year or a 2010 matchup at Amway with the University of Florida that featured a split 50/50 crowd of over 13,000 Knights and Gators fans. No one expects UCF to average 10,000 fans a game, but it is unacceptable to host a conference tournament in the middle of Orlando and not draw at least half that.
It is a disservice to the kids on the court and it is a poor representation of the strength of Knights nation.
Carson Ingle has been a sportscaster and sports talk radio host in Orlando for the past ten years. He can currently be seen several times a week on Spectrum Sports 360's Face-Off segment at 10:30 p.m. on Central Florida News 13, channel 1013. Follow him on Twitter.
