STOCKTON, Calif. » Brandon Spearman was looking glum. The Hawaii guard spent the second half of Saturday night’s game at Pacific sitting on the last chair on the Rainbow Warriors’ bench, his left leg stretched out over the next two chairs.
On the court, Hawaii was struggling, letting a first-half lead slip away in what would turn out to be an 80-71 loss.
The loss, the Warriors’ second in a row after a five-game winning streak, dropped Hawaii into a third-place tie with Cal Poly in the Big West Conference.
Spearman’s left ankle injury came at the end of the first half, when he was battling for a rebound with Pacific’s Lorenzo McCloud. Spearman came down with the ball but was immediately squealing in pain. His teammates, coach Gib Arnold, the trainers and a family member all came down to the court to check on him.
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80
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71
HAWAII
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Arnold said after the game that Spearman will be examined after the team returns to Honolulu.
"We don’t know," Arnold said. "It could be a broken ankle or a sprain. A high sprain. We don’t know."
Asked if the fact Spearman was able to return to the bench for the second half was reason for optimism, Arnold said, "Who knows?"
What is clear is that the Warriors weren’t the same team in the second half without Spearman. Hawaii had rebounded from Thursday’s listless performance at UC Davis with a solid effort, taking a 36-33 lead into the break. The poor rebounding from Thursday night? A thing of the past, as the Warriors held a 15-13 edge, including 5-4 in offensive rebounds. Letting the other team go off from long-range as happened in Davis? No sir! The Tigers were held to two of four from 3-point distance.
Hawaii scored the first basket of the second half when Hauns Brereton hit a jumper. Pacific (15-10, 9-4 Big West) then went on a 15-0 run to take control of the game. Tony Gill capped the run with a 3-pointer with 12 minutes, 52 seconds to go in the game.
"Usually when you go into the locker room and you’ve been playing well, there’s some energy and some loud talk in the locker room," Arnold said. "In that locker room, it was really solemn, it was really quiet. In 20 years of doing this, that is not how you feel on the road, winning and making winning plays at halftime. I think it affected them quite a bit when their teammate went down. It took us a while to kind of snap out of it, unfortunately."
Said forward Isaac Fotu, "When you take a big blow like that, such a good player like Spearman, it had an emotional effect on us."
Forward Christian Standhardinger had a solid game for Hawaii, scoring 20 points, including 14 in the first half.
"The whole league knows that I penetrate, so they played me as a penetrator," Standhardinger said. "I knocked some mid-range shots down and some 3-pointers. I think that is why it was a good half, but it doesn’t matter. I would love to miss all of the shots and we won."
Travis Fulton led Pacific with 23 points, and McCloud finished with 20 to go with 12 rebounds. That last stat shifted in the second half as the Tigers finished with a 34-29 advantage on the boards.
Hawaii (15-10, 9-6) returns home for a three-game homestand, hosting Northern Arizona in a nonconference game, then Big West matchups against UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly.
"I still feel really, really, really good about this team," Arnold said. "I like this group, I really like how we responded today. I thought our game prep was as good as it has ever been. I thought our mental toughness in this game was good.
"Coming out in the second half, we had a little lapse there. But we didn’t fold, we didn’t make excuses, we kept coming, I thought the guys kept playing hard. I have nothing to be ashamed about this game. These guys are going to be fine and it’ll be good to go home for a couple of weeks."
