Building a powerhouse from scratch with limited NIL, Dawkins led UCF to March Madness and earned a prestigious national coaching honor.
After losing 100% of its scoring contribution from last season, UCF became one of the bigger surprises in college basketball, picking up multiple marquee wins and punching its ticket to March Madness for the first time since the 2018-2019 season.
Head coach Johnny Dawkins deserves a lot of the credit, building a well-rounded team from scratch with one of the smallest NIL budgets among power four programs.
Thursday morning, it was announced that Dawkins was named the Jim Phelan National Coach of the Year. This honor is awarded to the top head coach in division I college basketball, making Dawkins the only UCF coach in program history to win.
Phelan was an accomplished coach in his own right, earning 830 wins (overall record of 830-524) across multiple divisions. In those 49 years, 19 of his teams amassed 20 or more wins in a season.
Dawkins beat out multiple future hall-of-famers for the award, including Michigan State's Tom Izzo and UConn's Dan Hurley.
Angela Lento, Vice President of College Insider, Inc. and member of the Jim Phelan award voting panel, highlighted what went into Dawkins earning the award on the Jim Phelan Award's official website.
“I don’t think enough has been made about the job Johnny Dawkins did this season at UCF,” Lento said. “He assembled a roster that included some good players from mid-major programs and had a terrific season in the best conference in college basketball. If UCF won just a few more games, Johnny Dawkins would have been a finalist for every head coaching award.”
As previously mentioned, the Knights' squad underwent a full rebuild, targeting standout players from mid-majors and bringing in underutilized talent at bigger schools.
Despite being picked to finish No. 14 in the Big 12, the Knights amassed a 9-9 record, finishing tied for seventh. The Knights knocked off three ranked opponents throughout the season, adding to Dawkins' program-best 12 ranked victories.
The first of these victories came in UCF's Big 12 opener, as the Knights toppled the No. 19 Kansas Jayhawks 81-75. Senior guard Riley Kugel led the way with 19 points and a game-sealing and-one finish to cement the upset.
Dawkins frequently flashed different defensive looks at Kansas, playing primarily man defense before dropping into a 3-2 zone.
Kansas head coach Bill Self gave Dawkins credit for his defensive variety in the postgame press conference.
"[We knew] they're going to go back man-to-man after the first ball screen or the second or third pass and we stood and held it and and let it bother us," Self said. "But I think Johnny does a really good job of changing things up and and they certainly did that."
This victory earned the Knights a No. 25 ranking on the AP Poll - the first time since 2019.
UCF's latest ranked victory was a dominant performance over No. 19 Brigham Young University (BYU). BYU is led by projected No. 1 overall pick AJ Dybantsa and was coming off of its biggest win of the season - a 79-69 victory over No. 6 Iowa State.
However, the Cougars' momentum and home court advantage was no match for UCF's blistering offense. The Knights scored a season-high 52 points in the first half behind 11 3-point makes. The 52-28 halftime deficit was BYU's largest in the last four seasons.
Junior forward Jordan Burks and fifth-year point guard Themus Fulks each dropped 24 points en route to the 97-84 victory.
Although the Knights' March Madness run was short-lived, Dawkins and the team showed that preseason rankings don't dictate a team's success. Following the season, it was announced that Dawkins will be receiving a contract extension to keep him in Orlando.
Specific details of Dawkins’ extension have not been disclosed, but it is certainly well deserved. Now, he will look to retain key pieces like Burks and sophomore center John Bol while building around a mix of returning production and future transfer portal additions.
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