UCF men’s basketball is undertaking a new era with Johnny Dawkins as the new coach. He brings with him a lot of clout and gravitas from his time with Duke and the beginnings of his coaching career at Stanford. His name carries weight to it.
The Knights certainly feel like they got one of the best coaching hires available to them.
The first part of Dawkins’ tenure has been fraught with some frustration. Adonys Henriquez’s surprise transfer gutted the team of one of its best players. And until Saturday, Matt Williams appeared to be gone. Williams though, after committing to Wake Forest, had a change of heart and decided to stay in Orlando at UCF.
There is still a lot of work to do to build up UCF even for just the 2017 season. Dawkins knows building this program will be a project too. While UCF has grown tremendously as a university and in athletics, there is still some work to do to get the program up and competitive in basketball. Especially in the tough American Athletic Conference.
Dawkins recognized though how difficult a task is ahead of him. As he told David Gardner of Sports Illustrated in a wide ranging interview about his career and building up the UCF program, there is no timetable for success. This year is about building a foundation:
“Well we want to head in the right direction, and that’s up. You have to lay a solid foundation first and foremost. It’s not going to happen overnight. You have to take that approach and work diligently every day to make that happen. We want to go forward with the confidence that we can build on top of this. I don’t give it years—Year 1, Year 2—we want to be great every year. I want our student-athletes to know that the possibility of success is there for them always.”
It would appear Dawkins recognizes this is going to take some time to really build up. The Knights will have to compete recruiting-wise with Florida, Florida State and Miami. But there is no reason they cannot do that. Certainly to the level that Florida Gulf Coast or elsewhere around the state.
But a coach of Dawkins’ caliber would not take the position at UCF without the belief that the the program could get to that level one day. There just may not be a timetable for getting there.
Dawkins has his work cut out for him for sure though. UCF has a lot of work to do to get where they want to go eventually.
