Scott, Miami down UCF for 72-50 victory

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Durand Scott scored 17 points and Reggie Johnson added 16 points and 13 rebounds to help Miami to an easy 72-50 victory over Central Florida.

Shane Larkin had 11 points and six assists and Kenny Kadji scored 10 for the Hurricanes (7-1), who led wire-to-wire in winning their sixth straight game.

Keith Clanton led UCF with 15 points and nine rebounds. The Knights didn't have another player in double figures after shooting only 35.4 percent (17 of 48) for the game.

"We've been playing pretty well at both ends of the floor and we certainly did that again tonight," Miami coach Jim Larranaga said. "We came out and defended them really well, passed the ball really well and shot really well. When they made a run at us, we regrouped quickly and went back to doing the things that had made us successful."

The Hurricanes established their dominance early, jumping out to a 17-4 lead in the first five minutes. Scott, Larkin and Johnson each had 3-pointers in that run, setting the tone for a first half of long balls and layups. Miami had 15 field goals in the first half and 14 of them were either 3-pointers or layups.

The Hurricanes led 37-21 at halftime with Johnson and Larkin each scoring nine points. Miami shot 51.7 percent (15 of 29) from the field while limiting UCF to just 30.4-percent (7 of 23) shooting.

"They got off to a heck of (a) start and we just couldn't score," UCF Coach Donnie Jones said. "Sometimes when you're not making shots, it takes the gas out of you and I think that happened to us. I don't think we handled that very well."

Clanton got nine points for UCF in the first half, but earned every one of them as Miami consistently shut down every attempt to penetrate the lane. He was the only Knights player to make more than one shot in the half.

The second half was more of the same. Miami patiently ran its offense until Johnson got open under the basket or one of his teammates was alone on the perimeter.

UCF's perimeter shooters finally found the range in the middle of the second half, but the Knights had a 19-point hole to climb out of by then. Matt Williams' 3-pointer cut the deficit to 51-40 with 11:04 left in the game, but that was as close as UCF would get.

Kadji stopped the rally with a 3-pointer and the Hurricanes advantage never was less than 12 the rest of the game.

"We've been trying to get our guys to not just defend their guy, but help the other guy and we were really good at that tonight," Larranaga said.

(Copyright 2012 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)