Hei Shan, China » The first thing Hawaii forward Trevor Wiseman thought of was the China-Brazil brawl.

Rainbow Warriors players and coaches and Shenyang players confronted each other in front of the UH bench after a series of hard fouls early in the third quarter of their exhibition game on Monday night. Ultimately no one was ejected, play continued and UH ran away to win 89-70 in the small Northeastern China city.

But for a moment, Wiseman recalled YouTube videos of the now-infamous "friendly" game between the two countries in China last year that ended prematurely once punches and kicks aplenty were thrown.

This, too, had the recipe for something bad. The ‘Bows felt there were hard fouls committed on them after whistles were blown. The Shenyang Panpan Dinosaurs, a pro team of the Chinese Basketball Association, were being blown out by unpaid Americans in their own backyard. And the overflow crowd of 3,000 murmuring Chinese fans lent a tense atmosphere to the game.

"They just started fighting with an incident like that, what happened (in our game)," Wiseman said. "Luckily nothing happened. We’re not in America, we’re in China."

After a hard foul on UH freshman point guard Shaquille Stokes — who was breaking to the basket with UH up 49-37 — things escalated for several minutes. Joston Thomas and a Shenyang player got face to face and much of the crowd stood up uneasily as UH and Shenyang postured and pushed.

Both benches cleared and some debris was thrown on the court by restless fans.

Once UH coach Gib Arnold was shoved by a Shenyang player, assistant coach Benjy Taylor didn’t think the game would continue.

"It just escalated, and once they pushed Coach, our players were ready to (get in there). Whatever happens after that, happens," Taylor said. "You’re not going to push Coach Arnold. They did and luckily cooler heads prevailed on their part because we were ready to get it on."

Referees and peacemakers on both sides stepped in and separated everyone. Play continued shortly thereafter.

"It was almost an international incident," Arnold said. "We avoided that, cooler heads did prevail, but it was kind of fun sticking up for each other and seeing the guys sticking up for their coaches.

"We kind of explained, next time that happens, let’s stay on the bench."