Long Beach State hands UH a tough loss

LONG BEACH, CALIF. >> Hawaii got burned on its day at The Beach.

The Rainbow Warriors’ bid for a perfect run through the Big West road was denied in a blaze of whistles in the Walter Pyramid. Long Beach State used a late run — and repeated trips to the free-throw line — to steal a 74-72 win on its senior night, leaving the regular-season conference champions seeing red heading into the Big West tournament.

UH (24-5, 13-3 BWC) retained the No. 1 seed it clinched by winning at UC Davis on Thursday, but with Saturday’s defeat, lost out on an outright regular-season title. The Rainbows had to make room for UC Irvine (13-3), which came back to win at UC Riverside earlier in the day.

Hawaii opens up the tournament Thursday at Anaheim’s Honda Center against eighth-seeded Cal State Fullerton.

“Tough loss. We look forward to the Big West tournament,” co-captain Quincy Smith said. “That’s not the way we wanted to come into it, but it is what it is.”

There was a glaring disparity of 18 second-half fouls on UH to eight on Long Beach, but it wasn’t the only reason UH fell short. Forward Stefan Jankovic missed a winning 3-point attempt with about four seconds left.

“They just outplayed us,” Smith said. “A lot of their guys played really good. They hit tough shots, got rebounds. We couldn’t get (any) calls, made stupid plays at the end. A lot of things didn’t go our way, and that’s why we ended up losing by two points.”

Several dozen Long Beach students among the crowd of about 3,000 rushed the court to celebrate the victory, which looked very much in doubt when the 49ers squandered a 13-point first-half lead and trailed by 11 with 13 minutes to play.

UH had its chances. Aaron Valdes hit the last of his five 3-pointers for a 69-60 lead with 5:48 to play, only for UH to see third-place LBSU (18-13, 12-4) go on a 14-3 run to close it out.

Coach Eran Ganot wasn’t interested in skewering the officials, even after LBSU attempted 26 second-half foul shots to five for UH. He was more worried about getting beat on the boards again (minus six) by a team that’s inconsistent in that area.

“At the end of the day, if you always look to blame somebody, point fingers, it doesn’t serve anybody any good,” he said. “It’s not going to make us better, as a team or individually.”

There wasn’t really one egregious call above all others. It was more a cumulative effect.

In the final 12:17, it only seemed like the 49ers went to the line 49 times. They went 17-for-24 from that point, compared to 1-for-2 for the Rainbows.

“We just had a lot of tough calls called against us,” Valdes said. “The foul count to us was a little off. But we just gave it our all and tried our best to win that game.”

Two of the Rainbows’ three league losses were at the hands of The Beach, which won by 14 in Honolulu on Jan. 30. This one stung, even though UH’s seeding was already set.

“We’re a team that doesn’t like losing at all, if it’s a scrimmage or a championship game,” said Valdes, who scored 19 to tie LBSU’s Nick Faust for game-high honors. “So I think we do take this one personal and hopefully we can play them again. … To beat the only team that swept us this year, that’d be good for us to get them back.”

That theoretical rematch would take place in the Big West championship game on Saturday.

Point guard Roderick Bobbitt scored 17 with six assists, Smith added 13 and Jankovic had a season-high 14 rebounds in the loss.

Sai Tummala made a corner jumper for a 72-68 UH lead with about three minutes to go. After 49ers forward Gabe Levin scored inside, Tummala missed a look at a wide-open 3. Faust tied it up on a drive and the teams traded turnovers.

UH called timeout with 35.5 seconds left and Valdes got a contested look at a baseline jumper. He was off the mark, and with 9.3 seconds left Tummala was called for a foul going over the back on the rebound. Travis Hammonds made the go-ahead free throws.

Jankovic’s miss from the top of the arc was UH’s last real chance. Roschon Prince was fouled on the rebound with 1.1 seconds left but missed both at the line. UH called for time on that rebound. Bobbitt caught it from three-quarters court with 0.8 to go but he couldn’t get a shot off before the buzzer.

“Some things we could continue to do better,” Ganot said. “Proud of our guys for hanging in there, fighting back to take the lead. We came really close to doing something really special.”

UH’s 7-1 conference road mark is still the best in program history, but the Pyramid is the only place UH hasn’t won as a Big West member in four tries.

For the game, Long Beach attempted 32 foul shots to UH’s 16.

“The first half, they were going to the line, because they were in attack mode,” LBSU coach Dan Monson said. “And I felt like they got a little passive against the zone, and we started attacking at our end, and that’s why (we got calls). It was a tough game to call. It must’ve been. It must’ve been, because some of it was” — Monson paused. “Well, it must’ve been a hard game to call, I would say. I’ll leave it at that.”

Long Beach got its final run started when guard A.J. Spencer (11 points, 11 rebounds) got fouled on a drive. He made the first foul shot, missed the second — but then stole it from Stefan Jovanovic, passed it out, went to the corner and got it back for a 3 for four points on the sequence, getting the 49ers within 69-64.

“That was probably the turning point of the game,” Monson said.

Bobbitt had a steal, bringing him to 159 for his two-year career. He needs one more to tie Tom Henderson for the program record.

BIG WEST MEN

Saturday

Long Beach State 74, Hawaii 72

UC Irvine 76, UC Riverside 66

UC Santa Barbara 69, Cal Poly 50

UC Davis 87, CSUN 83, 3OT

End of Regular Season

Long Beach state 74, hawaii 72

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

Halftime — LBSU 37, Hawaii 36 3-point goals — Hawaii 8-26 (Valdes 5-8. Bobbitt 2-6, Smith 1-4, Thomas 0-1, Jankovic 0-2, Tummala 0-5). LBSU 9-21 (Hammonds 3-6, Blackwell 2-3, Spencer 2-4, Bibbins 1-1. Faust 1-6, Levin 0-1). Steals — Hawaii 6 (Smith 2, Bobbitt, Jankovic, Tummala, Valdes). LBSU 6 (Hammonds 2, Blackwell, Faust, Levin, Spencer). Blocked shots — Hawaii 5 (Jankovic, Thomas, Valdes). LBSU 3 (Hammonds, Levin, Prince). Turnovers — Hawaii 15 (Jankovic 4, Bobbitt 3, Jovanovic 3, Filipovich, Smith, Thomas, Tummala, Team) LBSU 16 (Bibbins 6, Levin 3, Blackwell 2, Prince 2, Faust, Hammonds, Spencer). Technical fouls — Hawaii: None. UCD: None. Officials — Donn Berdahl, Phil White, Jeremy Dente. A — 3,722