Looming C-USA schedule should test Knights

While the UCF Knights sit at a 10-3 record, the real litmus test has yet to begin: Conference USA play.

The Memphis Tigers took home the C-USA championship last season while the UAB Blazers were the regular-season champions. This year, the favorite appears to be the Southern Miss Golden Eagles (13-2).

Although the Knights entered the conference with a stellar 13-0 record last year and won their first league game, their perfection faded and they won only six games in conference play.

"I know it just left a bad taste in everybody's mouth," sophomore forward Tristan Spurlock said. "I didn't even play last [season], but I still was a part of the team. … I think our mindsets are a lot tougher than last year."

The Knights seem ready to bounce back this season. To do so, though, they'll have to eat, sleep and breathe defense in order to win conference games. Coach Donnie Jones also mentioned recently that the Knights have had struggles building on leads.

"We've got to learn to build on leads, and we've not done a very good job all season long with that," Jones said.

The Knights will kick off 2012 and their conference schedule Wednesday by hosting a Tulane team (12-2) that has allowed an average of 54.1 points per game, the fewest in the league.

With that said, Tulane could act as a defensive force on the Knights.

Possibly helping UCF handle such an intense defensive effort is the return of senior point guard A.J. Rompza, who had been sitting out for NCAA rules violations. Rompza could take some pressure off his teammates and facilitate scoring.

"He did a good job coming out and making the game easier for lot of guys on our team here, especially [for Marcus Jordan]," Jones said. "[Rompza got Jordan] off the ball and [gave] him some freedom. He got other guys some easy baskets."

The Tulane game will be an indicator on how the Knights have progressed or regressed from last season's woes.

The Knights will especially have to focus their defensive efforts on Tulane's main scorer, junior guard Kendall Timmons, who has been averaging 13.7 points per game.

Aside from the Green Wave, plenty of other teams will stand between the Knights and league-play success.

The Marshall Thundering Herd (9-3) are an improving program, with the added incentive to beat the Knights being Jones himself, as he left Huntington, W.Va., to take up his current post at UCF in 2010. UCF split last year's series with the Herd.

Another team that could hamper UCF is the Memphis Tigers (8-5). The Tigers' potent offense could have the Knights scrambling to take quick shots in order to play catch up unless they properly defend the paint and the perimeter. Memphis' key player is sophomore guard Will Barton, who is averaging 19.5 points per game as the No. 1 scorer in the conference.

Southern Miss could also create problems for UCF, as it is a team that attempts a high volume of 3-point shots and makes about 39 percent of them. The Knights will have to crank up the perimeter defense and take care of the defensive rebounds if they'd like to be successful against the Golden Eagles.

So far, UCF has allowed 28.2 percent of 3-pointers this season. The Golden Eagles won last year's contest against UCF by 17 points.

UCF lost last season's series (0-2) against the East Carolina Pirates (9-4) by an average margin of 10 points. UAB (5-7) also looks to be a tough opponent, despite a slow start. The Blazers also swept the Knights last season, and have the fourth-ranked scoring defense in the conference this season.

Adversity here and there goes a long way, though. Jones believes UCF is still maturing with hopes of the team's chemistry peaking at the right time.

"This team is different than last year's [team]," Jones said. "Last year we won some of these games by 30 to 40 points. We went into conference play and [then] it got a little tough and we hadn't handled adversity. And this team has been through adversity – that's the only way [we're] going to grow. All successful teams and organizations have been through failure [and] adversity. I've been through it, and I think [the team is] growing."