Honor Huff, West Virginia surge past UCF

Honor Huff scored 18 of his game-high 21 points in the second half and visiting West Virginia rallied from a 14-point deficit to stop Central Florida 74-67 on Saturday night in Orlando.

Jasper Floyd added 17 for the Mountaineers (16-9, 7-5 Big 12 Conference), including a critical 3-pointer with 1:49 remaining for a 66-62 lead. Chance Moore came off the bench to chip in 12 points, while Brenen Lorient contributed 11 to go along with eight rebounds.

Huff applied the dagger by canning a 3-pointer with 59 seconds left to up the margin to seven. He added a pair of clinching free throws with 24 seconds on the clock.

Themus Fulks bounced back from a scoreless outing in his previous game in a loss at Cincinnati to lead the Knights (17-7, 6-6) with 19 points and seven assists before fouling out. Riley Kugel scored 13 points, while Chris Johnson and Jordan Burks added 10 apiece.

UCF owned a 52-38 advantage at the 11:27 mark after Fulks made a foul shot. But West Virginia rattled off the next eight points and took the lead for good on two foul shots by Huff with 2:37 on the clock.

Each team entered this game looking for answers after discouraging losses last weekend. UCF was hammered 92-72 on Sunday at Cincinnati, while West Virginia made only two of 22 3-pointers in a 70-63 home defeat against then-No. 13 Texas Tech.

The Knights came into the contest allowing 83.4 points per game in their last seven contests but clearly paid attention to the defensive end in the first half. The Mountaineers sank just 13 of 36 attempts from the field (36.1%), including a pitiful 1 of 12 on 3-pointers (8.3%).

UCF, however, managed only a 29-28 edge at halftime because it also couldn't get going offensively. It was only 10 of 27 from the field (37%) and also got pummeled 24-16 on the glass, allowing a whopping 11 offensive rebounds.

Huff, who entered as West Virginia's leading scorer, managed only three points on 1-of-5 shooting in the first half.