Has Johnny Dawkins saved UCF basketball or just continued the mediocrity?

Head coach Johnny Dawkins has been the head coach of the UCF Knights since 2016, creeping up on a decade.

Over 54 seasons of Knight basketball, Central Florida has maintained an overall record with a win rate of just over 50 percent. Dawkins has led the Knights to their best era since the first UCF coach Torchy Clark.

Clark held the reigns of the UCF program from 1969 until 1983 and he heralded an incredible  75.5 percent win rate.

Between Clark and Dawkins, the Knights had a long stretch of struggling to reach winning seasons. From Chuck Machock to Joe Dean Jr. to Donnie Jones, the UCF men’s basketball team dipped to an abysmal 30.9 percent winning record.

So, with Dawkins’ overall record of 148-103, has he saved Knights basketball or has he just continued the (possibly below-average) mediocrity that UCF has seen throughout its history?

Dawkins finally led the Knights back to the NCAA Tournament in 2019 after a 14-year absence.

The Johnny Dawkins Era

Dawkins, who had previously been the Stanford head coach for eight years, took over the UCF program on March 22, 2016.

In his first season with the Knights, Dawkins led Central Florida to a 24-12 overall record. The Knights finished fourth in the American Athletic Conference and made an appearance in the NIT semifinals.

Just two years later, to cap off the 2018-19 season, the Knights made an impressive run to the NCAA Tournament Round of 32 and finished the year at 24-9 overall.

While the Knights have clearly had some good seasons under Dawkins, the 2019 appearance in the Big Dance was the team’s only one during his tenure.

UCF earned a spot in the NIT the past two seasons but in 2023, the Knights were knocked out in the Second Round, and in 2022, they were eliminated in the first game.

As Dawkins heads into his ninth season with the Knights, UCF fans are hoping he can turn back to his winning ways and avoid the ever-looming threat of mediocrity.