UCF basketball’s Johnny Dawkins talks changes at Big 12 spring meeting

Dawkins acknowledges the challenges posed by the transfer portal, having lost key players like Keyshawn Hall to Auburn and Moustapha Thiam to Cincinnati.UCF has recruited new players, including Riley Kugel, B.J. Freeman, Themus Fulks, and Jamichael Stillwell, to rebuild the roster.Dawkins believes that while money is a factor in recruiting, UCF offers other attractive qualities to potential student-athletes.

ORLANDO — Passion still burns for UCF men’s basketball coach Johnny Dawkins, much like it did during his playing days at Duke. That, he says, will never change.

“As a player, they had to tear the jersey off my back. As a coach, they’re going to (have to) tear my suit jacket off,” Dawkins said Wednesday at the Waldorf Astoria, the first day of the Big 12 Conference’s spring meetings. “I love mentoring young people. I love working with them. I think our mission is sometimes getting lost right now with everything that’s going on, and our sport is changing so fast.”

College basketball’s sweeping changes include, in no particular order, the pending House settlement and revenue sharing, possible NCAA Tournament expansion on the horizon and the growing divide between power conferences. Additionally, year-to-year rosters are unrecognizable in the age of the transfer portal.

UCF basketball roster turned over in NCAA transfer portal

Dawkins will field nearly an entirely new squad come November, following a 20-17 campaign in which the Knights advanced to the inaugural College Basketball Crown’s championship game and pocketed $100,000 in Name, Image and Likeness prize money. Top scorer Keyshawn Hall departed for Auburn after initially entering the NBA draft, and — more controversially — starting center Moustapha Thiam joined rival Cincinnati in a package deal with assistant coach Mamadou N’diaye.

Thiam, a 7-foot-2 native of Senegal, was the program’s highest-rated recruiting signee ever. In his lone season, he averaged 10.4 points and 6.4 rebounds while ranking fourth in the nation with 88 blocked shots.

“I wish them well,” Dawkins said. “That’s in the past for me and my team. We want to be successful, and we want to continue to try and build a successful roster here at UCF. I wish them well in their future endeavors at their next stop.”

Former Mississippi State guard Riley Kugel, former Arizona State guard B.J. Freeman and the Milwaukee duo of point guard Themus Fulks and double-double machine Jamichael Stillwell headline the Knights’ additions from the portal.

UCF is far from the only team across college basketball needing to replace most — or virtually all, in the Knights’ case — of its statistical productivity. Fellow Big 12 program Baylor had an entirely bare cupboard by the time the portal closed April 22, when also factoring in graduation and NBA draft declarations.

Johnny Dawkins: ‘UCF has great things to build off’

Roster retention is still a hope for Dawkins in the future, even with UCF lagging behind its power conference counterparts financially. CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reported in April that at least 10 Division I teams will operate with basketball roster budgets of at least $10 million for the 2025-26 season, including a pair from the Big 12 (BYU and Texas Tech).

Money is, undoubtedly, a major factor in modern recruiting, but Dawkins contends it’s still not the only thing — and that UCF can still attract quality players with more modest resources.

“You have to make the most with what you have,” Dawkins said. “Some people may have more monetarily, but some people may have more in climate, or better facilities, or a better community. So, it depends on where you are, but there are assets everywhere.

“We have great things to build off here. And sometimes I think it gets overlooked because a lot of the conversation revolves around just straight money that’s been allotted, one way or another. That’s a part of our game, no question about it — and we have money here at UCF, too. We’re not a place that doesn’t have money; we have more than that. We have so many more things to offer student-athletes, and I think that’s why we have been so attractive to a lot of young people that want to be here.”