Hawaii’s floor general watched the first half from the end of the bench. Its leading scorer went scoreless for 30 minutes. Basketballs slipped out of hands on wide-open layup and dunk attempts.

Nothing went right, until everything did on Saturday night.

The Rainbow Warriors averted disaster — a possible second home loss in three nights — by pushing past some early doubt and grinding out a 77-63 victory over Cal State Northridge at the Stan Sheriff Center.

UH (15-6, 4-3 Big West) started slow, missing its first nine shots in trailing 11-2 in a matter of moments. But it settled down, took care of the ball (a season-low six turnovers) and hammered CSUN (11-12, 3-5) at the Matadors’ own game, on the offensive glass (22-10).

The ‘Bows pulled away in the final 10 minutes and moved into sole possession of fourth place, a game behind 5-2 tri-leaders Long Beach State, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.

Gib Arnold made a "coach’s decision" starting Quincy Smith over Keith Shamburger at point guard, ending a streak of 17 games of the same starting five. Shamburger would not take the court until early in the second half.

"Every game is based upon scout, based upon conduct on and off the floor," Arnold said of the starting point guard job. "I’ll make that decision going forward. But Keith’s every bit a part of this team and nothing is lingering from anything."

Compounding the early uncertainty in the arena about the ballhandling situation, leading scorer Christian Standhardinger got off to a 0-for-5 shooting start while playing with a knee bruise and did not score until 10 minutes remained. He finished with six points and five rebounds.

But sophomore Isaac Fotu picked up the slack, continuing his recent scoring tear with 20 points and eight boards.

"We just knew we couldn’t lose this game, or that would have put us in a world of hurt," Fotu said.

Guards Garrett Nevels and Brandon Spearman added 15 points apiece. The 6-foot-3 Spearman grabbed eight boards, including five offensive.

Spearman, among others, was emotional after a 92-83 loss to Long Beach State on Thursday to kick off a four-game homestand.

"It was hard keeping my head up after that tough loss," Spearman said. "Tonight … we played with everything we had."

With Shamburger — who had started all 20 previous games this season — watching from the very end of the Hawaii bench, UH notched only two assists for the first half.

With 17:30 to play in the game, Shamburger finally checked in to a loud hand from the crowd of about 6,000. He finished with seven points and four assists in helping the ‘Bows pull away.

Despite the point guard change-up, UH committed a season-low six turnovers. Still, the outcome was closely contested until UH broke away with about 10 minutes left; there were 11 ties and 13 lead changes. But CSUN would shoot only 37 percent in the second half and 43.1 percent for the game.

"We bounced back," Arnold said. "We took care of business. We treated it like business. Even when we got down 11-2, I thought our attitude was good."

UH sought to avenge a 79-78 loss at Northridge on Jan. 11 in which it had several opportunities for the go-ahead points in the final minute.

UH went to work on the offensive glass against Northridge’s small-ball lineup. It produced 22 offensive boards, one off the season high, as the ‘Bows went plus-10 in second-chance points on the Matadors, who are known for their putback prowess.

Also uncharacteristically for CSUN, the third-best free-throw shooting team in the country went 15-for-27 (55.6 percent) at the line.

"I thought for 32 minutes we outplayed them," first-year CSUN coach Reggie Theus said. "This is a team that’s had some issues the last few days, coming off a pretty emotional loss, losing to us at our place, and I thought we outplayed them for 32 minutes."

Forward Stephan Hicks led the Matadors with 18 points, but Stephen Maxwell, who shot 10-for-13 for 24 points in the teams’ last meeting, was held to nine points and eight boards.

"They did a great job of offensive rebounding," Theus said. "For the most part I thought our guys played hard and we were right there for a long time."

BIG WEST MEN

Saturday
Hawaii 77, CS Northridge 63
UC Irvine 64, Cal Poly 50
UC Santa Barbara 82, UC Davis 67
Long Beach State 75, CS Fullerton 56

Thursday
UC Santa Barbara at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
CS Northridge at UC Davis
CS Fullerton at UC Riverside
Long Beach State at UC Irvine

HAWAII 77, CS NORTHRIDGE 63

MATADORS (11-12, 3-5 BWC)

RAINBOW WARRIORS (15-6, 4-3 BWC)

Key — fg-a: field goals made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; rb: rebounds; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points; a: assists; to: turnovers; min: minutes played.

Halftime — Hawaii 32, CS Northridge 30.
3-points goals — CS Northridge 4-14 (Greene 2-4, Drew 2-4, Hicks 0-1, Vozzola 0-1, Williams 0-2, Parks 0-2). Hawaii 5-24 (Nevels 3-6, Smith 1-1, Spearman 1-8, Harper 0-1, Enos 0-2, Shamburger 0-3, Standhardinger 0-3). Steals — CS Northridge 3 (Drew, Hicks, JJThomas). Hawaii 2 (Nevels, Standhardinger). Blocked shots — CS Northridge 2 (Hale-Edmerson 2). Hawaii 2 (Standhardinger 2). Officials — Richard Cartmell, Rick Bastell, Donn Berdahl. A—Not reported.