Zigmars Raimo found himself defended by a single guard on the block. After a moment’s hesitation, as if in disbelief of his good fortune, the Hawaii forward barreled through the smaller player and laid the ball up and in for two.
The Rainbow Warriors, inspired by their rugged role player, answered the call for physicality as a unit in a
74-63 win over Long Beach State in front of 3,320 on Thursday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
UH (16-10, 7-6 Big West) won its third straight overall since dropping five straight. It avenged an eight-point loss at LBSU (13-16, 7-6) to open conference play last month by beating The Beach at its own game. The teams are matched for fifth with three games to play.
“Everything starts with the passion,” UH coach Eran Ganot said.
“Everybody’s raised their game, and then you have a guy like Zigmars really take off. … He’s such a testament to attitude. He hung in there. Young players should watch him.”
Senior forward Mike Thomas missed a second straight game with an unspecified injury, but UH pressed on without its top scorer and rebounder and won the rebounding battle by 12, points in the paint 42-26 and second-chance points 20-6.
Raimo was instrumental in that, scoring a career-high 17 points on 6-for-7 shooting in 22 minutes off the bench — at one point even receiving a partial standing ovation from the crowd — and senior Gibson Johnson added 13 points.
“We are team. Mike supports us, he is great leader,” said Raimo, a sophomore from Latvia.
“He’s going to play next game. We needed to step it up. One man down, next man up.”
UH, which expects to have Thomas back active at practice today, closes its home schedule with Saturday’s senior night against first-place UC Irvine (15-15, 10-4).
Long Beach native Drew Buggs was active against his hometown team and fouled out with 10 points, a season-high eight rebounds, five turnovers and three steals. The point guard tied Chris Gaines’ UH freshman season steals mark of 38 and even swatted guard Bryan Alberts emphatically out of bounds on a first-half fast-break layup attempt.
“I was fired up,” Buggs said. “They beat us the first time. Right now it’s crunch time in league and every game is important. Just want to make sure we have the urgency. Being the point guard, the team feeds off me, so I gotta make sure I’ve got the energy and am ready to compete. We had great energy all across the board.”
That display was emphatic (and lopsided) enough that a season-high 19 turnovers (LBSU had 12 steals) did not factor into the outcome.
LBSU lost for the fourth time in five games. The 49ers shot 39.6 percent after a 63 percent clip (and 50 paint points) at the Pyramid. Coach Dan Monson was unavailable for comment afterward.
Gabe Levin scored 10 of his team’s first 13 points for an early Beach lead and the senior forward had 14 of his 18 points by halftime to surpass 1,000 career points with LBSU. UH closed the half strong and led 34-25 at intermission despite no player scoring more than six points.
“He was a point of emphasis both halves,” Ganot said. “We just didn’t do a very good job in the first half.”
The Rainbows kept the conference’s most prolific foul shooter off the line, though; he attempted just four after earning a Big West-record 28 attempts against UC Davis just a few games ago.
LBSU crept within 46-42, but Buggs’ steal and coast-to-coast layup ended the rally.
Temidayo Yussuf picked up his fourth foul on a rebound attempt with 10:39 to play when his elbow came down on Raimo’s head. Raimo — who played a career-high 33 minutes in UH’s last game, an overtime road win at UC Riverside — converted two 1-and-1 free throws for a 10-point lead. He added two more to match his career high of 11.
“I love it,” Raimo said of going up against the burly, 270-pound Yussuf. “He’s tough guy, but I am too, so it’s just fun to play against him and talk with him.”
Purchase followed with a corner 3 for UH’s largest lead to that point, 57-44, with nine minutes left, and Raimo scored three more times inside to push the lead to 15.
“The thing is, they were switching, and I had (a) guard on me,” Raimo said. “The guards were passing it to me inside and I just need to finish it. That’s it.”
Purchase blocked Levin’s fadeaway jumper with under three minutes left, but Alberts (14 points) hit a 3 the next trip down to cut it to eight as UH tried, with mixed results, to drain clock. Brocke Stepteau boosted it back to 10 with a floater and added two more at the line to put it away with a minute left.
