Last season was year 10 for Johnny Dawkins as UCF’s head coach and it was year 3 for the program as members of the Big 12. All things considered, it was certainly a breakthrough for the Knights, with last year’s team making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019. Building on that success in a talented league like the Big 12 is never easy and Dawkins has his work cut for him once more.
Alot of buckets gone
All four double-digit scorers from that team are gone, with Jordan Burks transferring to Oklahoma State while Themus Fulks, Riley Kugel, and Jamichael Stillwell (maybe) exhausted their eligibility. There are just a few returning players, with the most notable returnees being 7-2 big man John Bol, and rising senior guard Carmelo Pacheco, though reinforcements certainly came to Orlando.
The reinforcements come via a few 3-star freshmen and a slew of transfer talent. While not this season’s addition, former Oklahoma State guard Arturo Dean should be a major asset for the Knights after redshirting last season, while Mister Dean joins his brother in this backcourt. Lewis Walker was a major scorer at North Carolina A&T and is a new face in a frontcourt that also adds Jason Asemota from Boston College and Isaiah Malone of Florida Gulf Coast.
The main attraction
Whether or not you consider him important, the most intriguing addition is certainly Dior Johnson and what he could mean for this season. A 6-3 guard from New York, Johnson has had anything but a straightforward path in his basketball career. He attended half a dozen high schools before redshirting after being arrested before playing at Pittsburgh. Solid work at the JUCO level led him to UCF where he was a backup player before finding better success at the mid-major level.
Johnson spent last season at Tarleton State, putting up monster figures with 24.0 points and 3.3 rebounds off the bench for the Texans. Nobody expects him to come anywhere close to that level of production back in the Big 12, but he knows Dawkins’ system and should be more of a reliable weapon than when he arrived in Orlando two years ago. He became a dynamic shooter with the Texans and we’ll see how much of his game carries over back at UCF.
Once again, no one is expecting Johnson to come to town and become leading scorer or a national playmaker for this program. However, he’s important depth in this new backcourt and his familiarity can’t be overlooked either. After all, Johnson was once a Top 40 prospect and maybe this is the year he finally puts it all together and competes with a relevant program.
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