College Basketball Week 2: 5 biggest takeaways

UCF Needs Tacko Fall To Be A Beast

It might not like seem like it, but UCF is an NCAA Tournament-caliber team this season. Unfortunately for the Knights, injuries are once again ravaging their roster. Something that really put a damper on last season’s chances.

The team’s star guard, B.J. Taylor, is currently on the shelf for four-six weeks. That’s a legit sad face emoji.

There is some good news in this otherwise gloomy cloud. Tacko Fall returned on Saturday when UCF played William & Mary.

How he played doesn’t really matter. It was his first game back and Fall will need a few games to get back into playing shape. He’s 7-foot-6. Humans that size aren’t exactly known for being able to just go in there and get at it without some reps.

The Knights struggled against William & Mary on Saturday. Many people will want to use that to downplay how good of a roster UCF has. Fine. Do that if you want, but you’re ignoring some important context.

Not only were the Knights down Taylor and with Fall back in a minimal role, but UCF had to face both William as well as Mary. Imagine how much UCF would have won by if it had to face just William or only Mary.

William & Mary are cowards if you ask me. You don’t see Xavier & Butler combining to play Georgetown, do ya?

Nevertheless, Fall is a sneaky great player. He’s the rare super-humanoid who can play long stretches of games and not be one-dimensional. Fall is great at blocking shots, rebounding, and scoring without the offense having to be run through him.

Until Taylor returns from injury, however, the offense will need to run through Fall. It will be a really telling time for both the Knights’ NCAA Tournament chances as well as what kind of NBA prospect Fall is.

A lot of pressure on Fall’s shoulders, honestly. Luckily, those shoulders are as wide as the gap in Michael Strahan’s teeth.