Knights good as gold
Minutes before tip-off of the UCF-USF game last Saturday, the switch was made.
While the Knights were on the court for pregame warm-ups, equipment manager John Whitford and his staff were busy hanging new gold jerseys in their lockers. The players, who thought they'd be wearing their usual home whites, were in for quite a surprise when they returned to the locker room.
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"We just changed it up on them," head coach Kirk Speraw said after the game. "They didn't even know we had gold uniforms and then we came out in gold. I guess it gave them a little shot of energy there."
The Knights went on to beat the Bulls 71-63 before a crowd of 6,695, which was the second largest attendance mark in UCF Arena history.
UCF basketball teams have worn gold jerseys in the past. They wore gold almost exclusively, both in home and away games, during the back-to-back Atlantic Sun Conference Championship runs in 2004 and 2005.
The Knights last wore gold in a non-conference game against Bethune-Cookman on Nov. 29, 2005.
"It really surprised us," said Tony Davis, who scored 17 points. "We came out in the whites and I didn't think they were going to let us wear the golds until we could prove that we could wear them."
The players knew gold jerseys were on order, but they didn't think they had arrived yet. The equipment staff kept that a secret until game time.
"When we came back in and saw the gold jerseys that was one of the best feelings," said Jermaine Taylor, who put up 30 against USF. "That pumped us up even more. We were already pumped for this game, but seeing those gold jerseys made it even more exciting."
The new jerseys even garnered a mention on UniWatch.com, a blog devoted to sports jerseys.