UCF men’s basketball took another big hit Tuesday when rising junior guard Adonys Henriquez announced he would transfer from the school and pursue academic and athletic opportunities elsewhere.
Whenever a new coach is hired, there is certainly to be expected some roster moves. Despite what the National Letter of Intent says, players often do commit to a coach and not to a program. A coaching change is often a change not only on the bench but also to the roster because of this.
UCF had already seen sharpshooter Matt Williams announce his decision to transfer earlier this offseason. Now Henriquez’s departure means the Knights will lose two of their best 3-point shooters from last year and have now lost three starters with Daiquan Walker also graduating — along with Shaheed Davis who started earlier in the season.
The Knights are certainly going to have to work to replace a lot of production.
Henriquez averaged 10.1 points per game, second most on the team behind A.J. Davis, and shot a 50.5 percent effective field goal percentage. His 35.8 percent 3-point field goal percentage was the second best on the team, behind Walker who graduated.
The Knights are undoubtedly now missing two of their biggest offensive weapons from last year and will have to put together a roster fairly quickly.
The Knights’ projected starting lineup for next year could very well be Chance McSpadden, B.J. Taylor (returning from a redshirt year), Tanksley Efianayi, A.J. Davis and Tacko Fall with Justin McBride coming off the bench. The Knights will certainly be relying on incoming transfer Aubrey Dawkins (if he is eligible to play immediately) and incoming freshman guard Jeremy Shepphard and Clayton Hughes.
The frontcourt is going to be pretty thin with returning rotation players for sure. Henriquez helped there playing a fair amount of small forward throughout the season.
The Knights’ depth will be tested and stretched thin for sure without some more changes to the roster for next year. The first year with Dawkins might have always been seen as a transition year anyway as he begins his recruiting and gets his players into his program.
Undoubtedly though, losing Henrqiuez is a huge loss for the Knights. At the end of the 2015 season, UCF believed it had a strong backcourt duo to build around with both Henriquez and Taylor making the All-Freshman team within the American Conference. Now that has completely fallen apart in many, many ways.
It could be a long 2017 season for UCF as the program begins to rebuild.
[…] would be fair to say UCF is still reeling from the surprising transfer of Adonys Henriquez. All of a sudden, the Knights lost their two best 3-point shooters from last year’s team and […]
[…] Henriquez announced he would transfer on his Instagram account last month, which was very surprising since he is a local native to the Orlando area playing his high school ball at Orlando Christian Prep. He came in as a 4-star recruit, according to ESPN.com, and delivered making the all-freshman team in the conference two years ago. The 6-foot-6 guard was one of the Knights’ best shooters and players on the squad, which will definitely leave a big void on the team with big shoes to fill in his absence. […]