A.J. Davis has been looking for a perfect fit. Mainly it is because he seems to fit wherever he is. For UCF, he is the team’s do-everything player.
A.J. Davis had to sit and watch last year.
The forward with the NBA father transferred from Tennessee after playing in 24 relatively underwhelming games his freshman year. He played in only 235 total minutes, not even 10 minutes per game.
Davis transferred to UCF that summer, another fresh starts for a kid who traveled around as his dad finished his NBA career. That part was not anything new.
Neither was trying to fit in.
Davis is the kind of player that fits in. He fills the gaps and does whatever his team needs him to do. Sometimes that means rebounding and crashing the boards. Sometimes that means locking down on defense. Sometimes that means he has to score.
Davis has done it all for UCF early on this season. He has been that glue guy and someone who has helped lift the Knights to a higher level of play during this four-game win streak.
“I’m just trying to win,” Davis said. “At the end of the day, whatever that takes, if it’s rebounding, if it’s scoring, if it’s playing defense, I feel like basketball players make basketball plays. If you want to win a basketball game, you have to do all the little things to win it. I cna’t just focus on one thing, I need to focus on whatever we need to win the game. Sometimes that is playing hard, sometimes that is rebounding. It’s just doing whatever I’ve got to do to win.”
It is hard to encapsulate Davis’ impact statistically. He is averaging a team-high 12.0 points per game with 3.5 assists per game and 6.1 rebounds per game. He has paired well with Shaheed Davis (the irony that both he and his dad teamed up with another player named Davis with no relation) to create a long duo of forwards on the edge of UCF’s increasingly effective zone defense.
So far this season, A.J. Davis has a usage rate of 23.1 percent, meaning possessions end with him having the ball whether they be a shot or a turnover 23.1 percent of the time. That is first among the starters.
Coach Donnie Jones has trusted Davis to make a lot of decisions and has struggled himself to find the right place to play him.
Jones started the year out with Davis playing a lot of point guard with B.J. Taylor out of the lineup. Davis has that much versatility that he could run the team, allowing a natural scorer like Chance McSpadden a chance to play off the ball and ease into the college game.
A rash of turnovers and some relatively poor play changed that as McSpadden and Daiquan Walker to get increased playing time so Davis could move off the ball more.
“I have had him playing all over the place so now I think he is getting more comfortable in his position,” coach Donnie Jones said. “We are learning how to use A.J. too. He has adjusted to how we should play.”
This has been perhaps where Davis has been more effective. Off the ball he has been able to slash through the lane and work off teammates more effectively.
He is really good at finishing in and around the paint and the basket — he is shooting 59.3 percent on 2-point field goals and has a 58.7 percent true shooting percentage (which takes into account free throws). Davis does a lot of that work slashing through the lane and working off good ball movement.
On defense, his length makes him a valuable weapon. The biggest challenge for Jones has been getting him to calm down some.
“I think the biggest thing for him is he is such a great competitor and he plays so hard that sometimes he was trying to guard everybody on defense and do everything on offense,” Jones said. “He is a Mr. Do-it-all. He needed to calm down and let things come to him and just be solid and know how to use his comeptitive spirit in the right way.”
Saturday’s win over FAU was exactly that kind of moment. He recorded a double double with 21 points and 15 rebounds. The ball was finding him on defense and on offense.
This was how Davis was supposed to be playing in many ways. Things click into place and Davis fills in the gaps. And he stuffs the stat sheet with whatever his team needs.
He just seems like a perfect fit.
