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The High Point University men's basketball team was within two when Shay Shine hit a jumper midway through the second half, but UCF's late scoring propelled the Knights to an 84-72 win over HPU on Friday evening at UCF Arena in Orlando, Fla. Nick Barbour led HPU with 18 points and Shine had a double-double (15 points, 10 rebounds).

"The pace was the way we wanted to play, the 72 points we put up were good but we didn't hold up defensively," said HPU head coach Scott Cherry. "It was tough to play a talented team like that on the road and give up so many offensive rebounds and baskets in transition. We knew we had to outwork them with their size and we had some chances. We had some good looks that didn't go down in the second half and we got stuck on 57 points."

High Point was within four points when junior Jairus Simms hit a layup to make it 61-57 with 7:58 left, but didn't score again until a pair of free throws by Xavier Martin with 4:08 to go. The score was 72-59 at that point and High Point didn't get closer than nine the rest of the way.

High Point fell to 1-2 with the loss while UCF improved to 2-1. The Panthers have two road games next week to try to get back on track.

Barbour went 4-for-6 from three-point range and junior Corey Law scored a season-high 17 points for the Panthers. Shine's double-double was his first in a High Point uniform. HPU held UCF under 41 percent shooting in the game but the Knights' 24 free throws made the difference.

UCF was led by Marcus Jordan's 21 points while big man Keith Clanton scored 20 with 15 rebounds. Isaiah Sykes scored 11 and Josh Crittle scored 10 for UCF.

The Knights closed out the first half on an 8-0 run to take a 36-31 lead, but the Panthers battled back to keep it close in the early part of the second half. HPU trailed by just three (49-46) when Branimir Mikulic hit a three-pointer and were within two (54-52) when Shine hit a layup with 11:43 remaining.

UCF was able to pull away in the final 10 minutes, getting its first double-digit lead of the game at 67-57 when Sykes hit a free throw. UCF's P.J. Gaynor followed with a three and the Panthers missed three-straight free throws as the Knights built their lead to 15 points late. HPU cut it to 81-72 when Barbour hit a three with under a minute to go, but that was the closest HPU got.

The Panthers are back at the Millis Center next week when they host Tennessee Tech on Tuesday and the Citadel on Saturday. Both games begin at 7 p.m. and can be heard live on 1230 AM and highpointpanthers.com and will have live video on the Big South Network.