Duke basketball icon maintains perfect record against blue blood program

Sometimes you just have another team's number and that's shaping out to be Johnny Dawkins against the Kansas Jayhawks, even dating back to his days as a Duke basketball player.

Dawkins has never lost to the Jayhawks in his career and continued that streak on Wednesday night as he led UCF to an upset victory over No. 3 Kansas, 65-60.

It was the program's first victory over the Jayhawks and its highest win over a ranked opponent in program history.

The Blue Devil legend is now 2-0 against the blue blood program as a head coach, the first victory coming during his stint at Stanford, and was 2-0 as a player at Duke against the perennial power to equal a perfect 4-0 against Kansas.

Johnny Dawkins is also undefeated against Bill Self in his career with two victories coming when both men were head coaches of programs as well as when was an assistant coach on Mike Krzyzewski's staff at Duke when the Blue Devils topped Self twice during his time as a head coach at Tulsa and Illinois.

Tuesday night was just the second game for Central Florida as a member of the Big 12 Conference and it did not receive a warm welcome with a 25-point loss on the road against Kansas State on Saturday.

UCF was picked to finish last in the Big 12 Preseason Poll while the Jayhawks were selected to finish first.

Dawkins kept things simple after the game by saying,"We belong."

Kansas led by as many as 16 points in its upset loss and held an 8-point advantage, 37-29, at halftime before being outscored 36-23 in the second half.

UCF still has a long way to go to make the NCAA Tournament this season, especially after its non-conference loss to Stetson, but will have more opportunities for resume building victories in the Big 12.