As the UCF Knights enter the 2019 American Athletic Conference Tournament, they will have a trio of honored players.
On Monday, the AAC announced its all-conference teams, and two Knights guards and a UCF big man were selected. Point guard B.J. Taylor was named to the All-AAC First Team, guard Aubrey Dawkins was named to the All-AAC Second Team, and center Tacko Fall made the All-AAC Third Team. It’s the first time UCF earned multiple all-conference honors and the first time in the Knights’ Division I history that they had three all-conference-team acknowledgments.
Taylor led UCF with 16.2 points per game in the 2018-19 regular season. The Orlando native also knocked down 172 free throws, a new school record, shooting a career-high 78.2 percent from the free-throw line. Taylor is the first-ever Knight to be named to the All-AAC First Team and the first Knight in any conference to earn first-team honors since guard Isaiah Sykes earned first-team honors in Conference USA in the 2012-13 season.
In his first playing season with UCF, Dawkins, son of Head Coach Johnny Dawkins, scored a career-high 15.4 points per game, shooting 46.2 percent from the field and 39.8 percent from 3-point range. His contributions helped the Knights to their most wins in the regular season in their Division I history (23-7).
Aubrey is coming off a career-high performance in a 67-62 loss to the Temple Owls on March 9. He scored 36 points on 12-for-23 shooting, including going 6-for-11 from 3-point range and 6-for-6 at the free-throw line.
As for Fall, he was named to the All-AAC Third Team. The 7-foot-6 center accounted for nearly 11 points per game, 7.2 rebounds per game and 2.4 blocks per game. In total, Fall shot 75.1 percent from the field in the 2018-19.
The Knights now enter the postseason, preparing for their first game of the AAC tournament on Friday. UCF will start its tournament run in the quarterfinals on Friday, playing the winner of the fifth-seeded Memphis Tigers and 12th-seeded Tulane University at 2 p.m. at the FedEx Forum in Memphis, Tennessee.
For more on the Knights, as they prepare for another AAC tournament run, follow Victor Tan on Twitter at @NDR_VictorTan.
To contact Victor, you can email him at vtan@newdayreview.com, or you can tweet at him.
