Jordan leads unbeaten UCF past Princeton, 68-62

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Marcus Jordan saw to it that the unbeaten run for No. 19 Central Florida stayed intact.

Jordan scored 22 of his 26 points in the second half to help the Knights rally past Princeton 68-62 Thursday night in the championship game of the UCF Holiday Classic.

The son of NBA star Michael Jordan scored nine straight points early in the second half to wipe out a 37-29 halftime deficit for the Knights (13-0).

Jordan took over almost every Central Florida possession. Just as important, he limited Dan Mavraides to just two points after the Princeton guard lit up the Knights with 18 points in the first half.

"Marcus scored 26 points, which was just an unbelievable effort, but the amazing thing was what he did defensively," UCF coach Donnie Jones said. "I challenged our guys at halftime to come out with an edge the first five minutes or we were going to the subs and (Jordan) certainly did that."

Jordan played on a sore ankle that prevented him from starting the previous two games.

"The ankle was killing me the whole game, but I just kept telling myself to push through it," Jordan said.

The sophomore guard shot 6-for-9 from the field in the second half and made 10 of 11 free throws. His fallaway 16-footer gave UCF its first lead of the game at 40-39 with 14:47 left in the game.

"He made a few shots to start the second half and you could see his confidence start to build up," Mavraides said. "I thought we did a pretty good defensively on him the whole game, but he made some really, really tough shots."

Mavraides finished with 20 points and four assists. Ian Hummer added 19 for the Tigers (10-4). Douglas Davis contributed 14.

Princeton scored the first eight points of the game and led by as many as 10 in the first half behind the 3-point shooting of Mavraides.

Received 12/30/10 10:31 pm ET