USF men fall to UCF in season rematch

ORLANDO — Darin Green Jr. scored a game-high 23 points as UCF beat USF 68-49 on Thursday night.

Darius Perry added 20 points for the Knights. Perry also had six rebounds.

Russel Tchewa had 13 points for the Bulls (6-14, 1-7 American Athletic), who have lost four games in a row. Caleb Murphy added 11 points. They were the only Bulls to score in double figures. Javon Greene had a career-high seven assists.

With the score tied at 11 with 9 minutes left in the first half, Green gave the Knights the lead with a 3-pointer and they never trailed again.

UCF shot 14-of-32 from 3-point range. The 14 three-pointers were the most allowed by USF this season.

The Bulls shot 2-of-13 from 3-point range and were outrebounded 42-32 after outrebounding UCF in their last meeting, a 75-51 USF win last month.

“It was a tale of two games against UCF this year,” USF coach Brian Gregory said. “We didn’t rebound the ball (Thursday), and that made the difference for us last time. If we don’t shoot the ball well, we have to hand out hats on rebounding and defense. And we didn’t do a good job of closing out the first half again.

“I thought we let some fast break opportunities get away from us, and we need those to be able to cut into deficits, like we did late in the game. We have to recognize who we are right now and be OK with that. If we aren’t hitting shots, we have to really lean on other aspects of the game to grind out victories moving forward.”

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