The Legacy of Coach Nolan (ch2k8)

[nolan887]

Quote: Originally Posted by superjames1992

LOL at UCF being picked 11th in C-USA... Good luck this season!

haha, I know. My team overall is low again as it was last year, but I managed to dominate with my 7 footer down low. He ended up with ~22 PPG last season. I'm hoping Shannon will stop fouling for no reason and my Freshman center can pick up some of the slack. Don't forget that I got Simmons more involved at the end of the season too. The critics down know squat IMO!

Quote: Originally Posted by Deuce2223

Good luck trying to land Grundy. Landing a 5* AA would be huge. You got my support every game excpet the UC Davis game I would've scheduled UCF to play the Aggies in my legacy, but after I got done putting in all the teams with players on it from the boards, I only had 1 game left and that went to UCLA my legacy rival. I have beat them every year so far. I am not sure what I am going to do next year with 5 incoming player. I will need to more to a confernce in which has more non-conference games available I guess. Maybe the WCC..

Thanks. I'm hoping to get some better players this season, I had 16 on my roster last year so I figured guys could just step up this season, but they are all rated so low. I had a tough time doing my schedule as well. I wanted to schedule games against San Fran and Boise as well as my non-conference games, but it just would have been too many.

[nolan887]

OPEN MOUTH, INSERT FOOT - NOLAN'S KNIGHTS SILENCE CRITICS

UCF Knights 1-0 (0-0) at #1 Florida Gators 0-1 (0-0)

Stephen C. O'Connell Center

Gainesville, FL

November 1, 2014

Gainesville, FL - One of Coach Nolan's strong suits is that he has unbelievable faith in his coaching ability, and in every player on his roster. This was apparent last season when he coached a team compromised of unknown players to a thirty win season, conference title, and 2nd round NCAA birth. This season would be no different as Nolan scheduled the Knights' season opener at #1 Florida Gators. The gators were the runner-up in the title game last year and return all five starters from their lineup last year. Just a few days ago, the critics scoffed at this choice, and projected UCF to finish second to last in their conference. These same critics chose UCF to finish dead last in the conference last year, UCF finished first. Nolan decided to remain quiet, and let his upset over #1 Florida speak for him.

The Knights traveled to a hostile Stephen C. O'Connell Center to face the best team in the nation tonight and shocked the world. The Knights did not trail for a single second in their season opener and were able to execute their game plan to perfection. Nolan's offensive style is to pound the ball to the big men down low and to drive to the bucket from the outside with a relentless attack on the basket. His game plan worked to perfection this game as the whole team put forth a great effort on both offense and defense. The Knights were also able to get the Gators into foul trouble all game and had favorable match ups against Florida's short bench. The Knights held 2013-14 Freshman of the Year Elmore Salow to just 8 points and only allowed two Florida players to score double digits.

"Eleventh in the conference?" Nolan joked after the win. "I think we yet again proved that we will always be a team to be reckoned with. Pearson Shannon definately stepped up to fill the void left by Kleinzweig and freshman Michael Boyce had a solid start to his collegiate career as well with a nice double-double. Thirty eight free throws is always helpful in a win also! This was a big win for this program, and I think all of our players now truly know their potential and the potential this team has for the rest of the year."

Senior forward Pearson Shannon led all in scoring with 20 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist, and 1 steal. Freshman center Michael Boyce started his career off with a double double, 12 points and 11 rebounds and his freshman counterpart Gilbert Logie started his career off with 8 points. Starting guards J.J. Bone and Nicholas Simmons were both able to put up 10 points a piece as well. This win was a total team effort on both ends of the ball, and if the Knights can play like this every game, the could easily win the National Championship.

Central Florida (1-0) at Florida (0-1)
November 1, 2014 1 2 F Central Florida 40 36 76 #1 Florida 30 29 59 Top Performers Central Florida - Stats Pearson Shannon - 20 Pts, 7 Reb, 1 Ast, 1 Stl Michael Boyce - 12 Pts, 11 Reb, 1 Stl Florida - Stats Arvydas Matheus - 16 Pts, 5 Reb, 4 Ast Trace Gilchrist - 14 Pts, 5 Reb, 3 Ast	Team Stat Comparison UCF UF FG Made-Attempted 26-59 23-54 3P Made-Attempted 0-0 8-21 FT Made-Attempted 24-38 5-9 Rebounds 33 30 Assists 12 17 Steals 11 2 Blocks 3 6 Turnovers 2 11

[Deuce2223]

Congrats on the win over #1 Florida. Was that your 1st time beating the #1 Overall (Earning you the attribute)...

As far as rosters go, I like to keep 10 active and 2-3 redshirts. I cut guy's all of the time to open up more scholarships more often. I actually like to keep a couple of walkons if possible

[nolan887]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deuce2223

Congrats on the win over #1 Florida. Was that your 1st time beating the #1 Overall (Earning you the attribute)... As far as rosters go, I like to keep 10 active and 2-3 redshirts. I cut guy's all of the time to open up more scholarships more often. I actually like to keep a couple of walkons if possible

Thanks. I actually beat Florida in the NCAA tourney my last season at USC Upstate when I made my Final Four run. Coincidentally I beat them again tonight and those are my only wins over #1 ranked team haha.

As for the roster, I just had way to many people from last year. I didn't want to make cuts last season and then realized that I needed more depth somewhere. I'm running an 8-man lineup in the games with 6 bench players (3g and 3f). I think that will be plenty. I also have a 71 OVR SG waiting to play for me his senior season. He just transferred in from Air Force Academy this past off-season.

[nolan887]

ARMY GETS EMBARRASSED IN HOME OPENER, UCF STILL LOOKING STRONG

UCF Knights 2-0 (0-0) at Army Black Knights 0-1 (0-0)

Christl Arena

West Point, NY

November 5, 2014

West Point, NY - A red hot UCF team coming off of a big win against #1 Florida came out with guns blazing. For the second straight game, the UCF Knights have lead the entire forty minutes. The Knights were able to play great defense this game, limiting the Black Knights to 35% shooting and only 46 total points in the game. Pearson Shannon led all in scoring with 23 points and freshman Michael Boyce is doing a great job filling in recording 17 points and 8 rebounds in the game. For Army, Aron Barton had 14 points, Auten Vega had 7 points, and no other member of their team had more than 5 points on the day. The Knights were able to keep up their relentless attack of the basket and shot 39 free throws in the game. A problem that came up at the end of last season has seemed to progress its way into this season as well and that is free throws. The Knights shot 20-39, 51%, from the charity stripe. A big part of this debacle is Shannon. He is not known for his free throw ability, and really struggled in this game. If teams decide to foul him on every shot attempt and force him to get his points from the line, UCF may be in for some trouble. Tonight from the line, Shannon shot only 7 for 16.

"It is good to see that we didn't come out flat today," Nolan said. "Last year for some reason we would get so hyped up about a big win that we would fall on our faces the next game but obviously we did just the opposite today. We got a bunch of bench guys in there today to close out the game, and everyone looked real good. I'm impressed by Mike's [Boyce] play so far, I really thought he might take a while to develop, but he is putting up solid numbers already. We need to work on his shots down low and going up strong, but he is looking real good. I think sometimes he forgets that he is almost seven feet tall and just needs to reach over the defense to drop the ball in the hoop! We are going to take the last win and this win and really look into areas we need to clean up on for UNLV on Saturday."

The UNLV Runin' Rebels were the first team to knock the Knights off last season. This season, the Knights will be hosting the Rebels in Orlando and hope to settle the score. Some of the issues Nolan eluded to cleaning up are free throws (51%) and turnovers (8). Although the Knights had a few problems tonight, they still managed a 26 point win on the road, a feat that should not go overlooked. A Las Vegas area sports blogger known only as 'Dynasty Josh' claims "Nobody can beat my Rebels.. not even that Coach Nolan, just ask him what happened in Colorado last year." As if a win over the #1 ranked team in the nation wasn't enough, Nolan will try to silence more critics this Saturday in Orlando.

Central Florida (2-0) at Army (0-1)
November 5, 2014 1 2 F Central Florida 41 31 72 Army 23 23 46 Top Performers Central Florida - Stats Pearson Shannon - 23 Pts, 6 Reb, 1 Ast, 1 Stl Michael Boyce - 17 Pts, 8 Reb, 1 Blk Army - Stats Aron Barton - 14 Pts, 2 Reb, 3 Ast, 1 Stl, 1 Blk Austen Vega - 7 Pts, 1 Reb, 1 Ast	Team Stat Comparison UCF USMA FG Made-Attempted 26-54 20-57 3P Made-Attempted 0-1 2-15 FT Made-Attempted 20-39 4-9 Rebounds 41 29 Assists 14 12 Steals 5 7 Blocks 1 8 Turnovers 8 11

[Deuce2223]

Love the writeup, especially including the comment about Dynasty Josh, that my friend is a classic

[nolan887]

Quote: Originally Posted by Deuce2223

Love the writeup, especially including the comment about Dynasty Josh, that my friend is a classic

Haha thanks. I had myself cracking up as I wrote that. I'm gonna play the game now so we will see how it goes lol.

[BV28]

I guess you'll just have to wait and find out how good my Rebels are!