One of the Big 12's newest members celebrated its first-ever conference home game a with a huge upset as UCF knocked off No. 3 Kansas 65-60 Wednesday. The Jayhawks became the third top-three team to fall victim to a massive upset this week after No. 1 Purdue lost to Nebraska and No. 2 Houston fell to Iowa State the day prior.
Kansas (13-2, 1-1 Big 12) star big man Hunter Dickinson drilled a 3-pointer with 17 seconds left to cut the Knights lead to three, but UCF guard Darius Johnson drilled a pair of free throws moments later to give UCF (10-4, 1-1) its first win against a ranked opponent since 2020 (Florida State).
The Knights were previously 1-11 against top-5 opponents and their other win came against UConn in Nov. 2011.
Kansas survived an upset bid against TCU in its conference opener after Dickinson made the game-winning basket with three seconds remaining. The Jayhawks had a perfect 10-0 record against unranked opponents this season.
UCF guard Jaylen Sellers scored a game-high 18 points and Johnson added 17. The Knights fell in their Big 12 opener to Kansas State last weekend before recording one of the biggest wins in program history days later.
Poor play against unranked teams finally caught up to Kansas
Let me start by saying that there have been multiple occasions where Kansas has looked like the clear-cut No. 1 team in the country. In the Jayhawks' third game of the season, they mounted a comeback to knock off Kentucky. Then, in the span of a few days, beat No. 7 Tennessee and No. 4 UConn. However, with the good wins have come a handful of ugly victories. Kansas needed a heroic effort down the stretch to to beat Indiana last month. Just this past weekend, it nearly lost to unranked TCU to start conference play. Kansas gets a pass for now, but a track record of poor play against inferior opponents is alarming. Former highly-touted recruit Elmarko Jackson has certainly shown flashes of his four-star potential this season, but the young wing was held scoreless for the second consecutive game after playing 20-plus minutes in both. If Kansas wants to reach its full potential, it will need more from him.
Biggest win in UCF history
Wednesday marked possibly the biggest win in UCF program history. The Knights defeated their highest-ranked opponent ever and simultaneously won the program's first game as a member of the Big 12. UCF previously had top-10 wins over UConn (2011) and Houston (2019), but slaying a blue blood for your first Big 12 win is a heck of a way to start conference play. The biggest question now: Can UCF parlay this momentum into an NCAA Tournament berth? Two of UCF's four losses this season have come by three points or less. The Knights face No. 18 BYU, No. 25 Texas and No. 2 Houston in the coming weeks. We'll know a lot more once those games have been played.
