ANAHEIM, Calif. » For Hawaii to reach the NCAA Tournament, the Rainbow Warriors would have to surmount the largest human obstacle in Division I basketball.

On Saturday night, UC Irvine’s Mamadou Ndiaye — the nation’s tallest player at 7-foot-6 — played against UH for the first time this season in the Big West Conference tournament final, the third meeting between the teams.

Ndiaye finished with eight points, six rebounds and two blocks. But his influence extended beyond statistics, as the third-seeded Anteaters rallied for a 67-58 win and earned their first NCAA berth.

As a freshman last year, Ndiaye (pronounced EN-jah-ee) set a Big West record with 106 blocks to earn the award as the conference’s defensive player of the year. But this season, the 300-pound native of Senegal missed 19 games because of a sprained left foot.

The fifth-seeded Warriors countered Saturday night with their 6-foot-11 Serbians, Stefan Jankovic and Stefan Jovanovic. Both found positioning against the physical Ndiaye difficult.

But observers regard Ndiaye as a project, and UH exploited his relative lack of agility and court awareness early. With 3:31 gone, Jankovic took a pass from Roderick Bobbitt in the low post, used a shoulder shimmy to elude Ndiaye and found open space for a fall-away jump shot.

Defensively, gang rebounding limited Ndiaye’s effectiveness. The sophomore grabbed just two rebounds in the first half — and only secured his third with 10:20 to play.

"We did a good job against him," UH coach Benjy Taylor said. "We followed up. We scrapped. We did a good job of denying him the deep post touches. I didn’t really notice him too much."

But Ndiaye made his biggest impact in the last part of the game, when he played more than nine consecutive minutes.

One example: With about four minutes remaining, UH’s Isaac Fleming had to stretch awkwardly to try to convert a lay-in against Ndiaye, who blocked one of Fleming’s earlier shots. After Ndiaye again stuffed Fleming, Aaron Valdes tried to secure the ball in a fight for the rebound. But Valdes volleyed the ball over the backboard.

"He just alters every shot out there," Irvine guard Travis Souza said. "He’s such a difference-maker on the court, whether he’s scoring or not."

After the final horn sounded — and as the Anteaters’ fans were storming the court — Ndiaye and coach Russell Turner hugged in front of the scorer’s table.

"I was an emotional big guy and Mamadou is an emotional big guy," Turner said. "The kid — the young man — is really special as a competitor. Every now and then, I see a look in his eye that strikes some fear in me because his competitive fire is so strong."