LAS VEGAS » For the first 20 minutes Saturday, Gib Arnold did not recognize the Hawaii basketball team that was on UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center court.

Arnold was seeing pass after pass picked off, and on those occasions when the Warriors did get the ball inside, the Rebels were the more physical team, forcing off-balance shots.

"We talk a lot about having a ‘hit-first’ mentality," Arnold said. "I felt they really hit us first in that first half."

The hits came so fast and so hard that, despite finding their game in the second half, the Warriors could not recover from a 22-point halftime deficit and fell to No. 24 UNLV 77-63 before a crowd of 15,431.

Christian Standhardinger scored a game-leading 27 points — 16 in the second half — as Hawaii twice closed within eight points, the last time at 71-63 on a pair of free throws by Vander Joaquim with 2:58 remaining.

But UNLV finished with a 6-0 run to beat the Warriors in their lone nonconference game on the mainland, dropping Hawaii to 4-2 for the young season. The Warriors host Pepperdine at Stan Sheriff Center at 7 p.m. Saturday.

What made the Warriors’ failed rally against UNLV even more exasperating was that they hit just one of eight 3-point attempts in the second half after going 0-for-10 in the first half. The Rebels, meanwhile, were 7-for-15 from outside the arc for the game.

Joaquim’s 3 with 3:31 left came after 14 straight misses by the Warriors, who had hit 34 percent of their 3-point tries through their first five games.

"Going 1-for-18 on 3s? You’re not going to beat this team," Arnold said of the Rebels, who improved to 5-1. "You’re just not. You’re going to have to hit some shots.

"That was too bad we didn’t have our shooting legs under us. That would’ve made for a fun game."

For most of the second half, it was.

Led by Standhardinger, who added 10 rebounds for his second double-double of the season, Hawaii had the Rebels back on their heels — making ill-advised passes and rushing shots.

The Warriors first closed to within eight points, at 61-53, on two free throws by Joaquim, who finished with 12 points and nine rebounds.

After UNLV rebuilt the lead to 13 points on three occasions, Hawaii made one last run, cutting the deficit to eight on Joaquim’s final two free throws.

But a missed layup by Brandon Spearman and a failed 3-point try by Joaquim ended the Warriors’ spirited comeback bid.

"As a team, I kind of felt like we laid back and let them punch us in the second half," UNLV freshman Savon Goodman said.

The second half was almost a role reversal of the first, when a 32-9 UNLV run over a 10-minute stretch propelled the Rebels to a 49-27 lead at intermission.

"They did a good job of flying around. At times, it seemed like they had eight guys out there," Jace Tavita said of the Rebels in the first half. "I don’t know why it took us a full half to realize that we had to knuckle down and follow our game plan."

Arnold said he pulled his team together at halftime, had them "take a big breath, and said, ‘This isn’t who we are. I didn’t recognize that first 20 minutes. We’ve got 20 more minutes to play as who we really are.’ "

Standhardinger needed 24 shots from the field and nine made free throws to hit 27 points for the second time this season. But his missed open 3-pointer with 9:45 remaining was big. It could have reduced what was a 10-point deficit to seven and furthered the Warriors’ momentum.

The junior forward said he did not remember that specific miss, which led to a layup on the other end by UNLV’s Mike Moser, but he said he and Joaquim talked in the locker room after the game about the team’s 3-point struggles.

"Me and Vander … we’ll go into the gym and shoot some 3-pointers and get that fixed and be ready," Standhardinger said.

Said Joaquim of the team’s outside shooting woes: "That’s a lot of opportunities we missed. We came back strong in the second half, but I was surprised that we got back into it without making 3-pointers."

An 0-for-4 night from long range notwithstanding, Stanhardinger was the best player on the court in the second half, Arnold said.

"I think the world of UNLV’s players, but I thought in the second half he was the most aggressive player out there and was playing really well," Arnold said. "We don’t have many advantages (against) their team. That team has outstanding players.

"But the one we did have was Christian, who was able to bring their bigs away from the basket and then drive it. So we played to that strength a lot."