UCF men’s basketball head coach Johnny Dawkins has agreed to a three-year contract extension that will keep him with the Knights through the 2028-29 season, Vice President and Director of Athletics Terry Mohajir announced.

This past season, Dawkins led the Knights to the NCAA Tournament, marking just the second at-large berth in program history. UCF opened the 2025-26 season with a 12-1 start, the best under Dawkins. The Knights continued their success by finishing Big 12 play with a 9-9 record, the program’s best conference mark since joining the league ahead of the 2023-24 season. The Black and Gold finished the year 21-12 overall, marking the second consecutive 20-win season under Dawkins.

The 2025-26 campaign was one for the record books as the Knights averaged 80.7 points per game, the highest scoring average under Dawkins and the most by a Knights team in the Division I era. An 11-game winning streak, spanning from Florida A&M on Nov. 11 through Oklahoma State on Jan. 6, marked the longest winning streak of the Dawkins era and the program’s longest since the 2010-11 season.

The Black and Gold also tied a program record with three Top 25 wins, defeating No. 17 Kansas, No. 11 Texas Tech and No. 19 BYU. Those victories brought Dawkins’ career total at UCF to 12 wins over ranked opponents.

Those victories helped the Knights earn a No. 10 seed in the Big Dance where they faced No. 7 seed UCLA in Philadelphia, a narrow 75-71 loss to the Bruins. The NCAA Tournament berth was made even more impressive considering the unprecedented roster overhaul the Knights navigated entering the season. UCF was one of only two teams in the country, alongside Miami, to reach the NCAA Tournament without returning any scoring production from the previous year’s roster.

https://ucfknights.com/news/2026/05/28/ucf-announces-three-year-extension-for-johnny-dawkins