In a night where the Blue Man Group performed at halftime, the UCF Knights men’s basketball team was left feeling blue by freshman Hassan Whiteside and the Marshall Thundering Herd, who came back from a nine-point halftime deficit to beat the Knights, 81-75, in front of the second-largest home crowd in program history at UCF Arena.

Whiteside had a triple-double, scoring 14 points with 14 rebounds and 10 blocks as Marshall outscored UCF, 46-31, in second half to improve to 14-2 overall and 3-0 in Conference USA while UCF dropped to 9-7 overall and 1-1 in conference play.

“I think we lost our intensity that we had in the first half. We could of started to build on that lead but it was little stuff that hurt us,” sophomore guard A.J. Rompza said. “In the second half they were getting every loose ball, they went to the glass harder then us.”

The Knights played a great first half, shooting 58-percent from the field as they led by as many as 12 at one point. But following the halftime performance by the Blue Man Group, who performed with the UCF Band, the Knights shot just 37-percent in the second half while Marshall shot 52-percent for the game. The Herd went on a 20-6 run early in the second half to come back from their deficit and eventually take a lead they would not relinquish.

Marshall dominated the free throw line going 21-for-30, including 15-for-21 in the second half, while UCF only mustered seven trips the to the line the entire night.

“When they are shooting 30 and you are shooting seven, that is tough to overcome,” said UCF Coach Kirk Speraw.

The Knights were led by freshman Marcus Jordan who scored 19 points to lead the way in just his second career start, while Rompza chipped in with 12 points, six assists and three steals in defeat.

Speraw needs just one win to tie the late Torchy Clark for the most wins in school history with 274 all-time. But Speraw and the Knights will now have to regroup and play a complete and consistent 40 minutes as they head into a tough road trip against one of the preseason conference favorites in Tulsa on Saturday, who is 11-0 at home this season. UCF then travels to Houston on Jan. 20.

“I told our guys that every conference game is going to be this way,” Speraw said. “We need to understand that and be ready for that. We’ve got to be more consistent from beginning to end with our execution and effort.”

The 9,460 fans in attendance surpassed the 8,727 that were made it out on opening night against Massachusetts in November. The all-time record stands at 9,825 fans from a season ago when the Knights hosted Memphis.