Preseason projections had Hawaii pegged near the very bottom of the Big West barring something unexpected.
Ladies and gentlemen, UC Santa Barbara.
Behind a career-high 34 points from Noah Allen, the Rainbow Warriors enjoyed the season’s first rout of a conference opponent, a 78-56 demolition of the last-place Gauchos on Saturday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
A crowd of 5,498 was treated to extended garbage time — a throwback to last season’s championship team — as Allen blew things open with nine straight UH points as part of a 15-1 run midway through the second half.
The sixth-place ’Bows (9-11, 3-4 BWC) went 3-2 on their five-game homestand and now prepare for road contests at UC Riverside and Cal State Northridge this week.
Allen topped 25 points in four games of the homestand, but this was his most emphatic, and often easiest, outburst of the group. It came on the heels of an eight-point performance in a six-point loss to UC Riverside on Wednesday.
“It felt good. We came out with a lot of energy and passion, something we lacked in the last game,” Allen said. “It carried throughout the game (tonight).”
Allen shot 11-for-14 from the field and 9-for-9 at the line to tie for the 19th-most points scored in program history. It was the most since Stefan Jankovic dropped 34 vs. CSUN on Feb. 18 of last year.
He exited to a partial standing ovation with 3:24 left.
That no other ’Bow scored in double figures was hardly a problem against the Gauchos (3-16, 1-6), who are accustomed to being competitive in the Big West. It’s been the roughest season of Bob Williams’ 19-year tenure, and Saturday was no different as UCSB shot 28.6 percent. UH’s 49.1 percent shooting resulted in its largest margin of victory against a Division I opponent this season.
UCSB, which has missed would-be starting forwards Jalen Canty and Ami Lakoju since December due to academic ineligibility, played almost exclusively zone defense and was perimeter-heavy on offense. The Gauchos lost All-BWC wing Michael Bryson to graduation in the offseason, which loomed large as UH’s 6-foot-7 wing Allen went off.
“We made it a point to get into the high post. I thought we did a real good job doing that,” Allen said.
Allen’s two 3s and a three-point play on three possessions pushed the lead to 51-35 with 12:48 left and the rout was on.
Williams said Allen was “very efficient. He’s a hard guard for us. He’s the exact position we don’t have.”
Guard Gabe Vincent, the Gauchos’ best player, wore down as the game progressed. He scored all nine of his points before halftime. Max Heidegger scored a team-high 10 points off the bench as UCSB shot 5-for-25 in the second half.
“The difference in the game was we cannot find ways to continue to score buckets,” Williams said. “So the lack of having someone who’s a go-to offensively is pretty daunting right now as a team.”
UH coach Eran Ganot wanted a complete defensive effort against another shorthanded team following the letdown against Riverside.
“Our locker-room talk, points were pretty emphatic after that game,” Ganot said. “This wasn’t a surprise so much, if you saw our practice the last two days, you saw it coming.
“Nothing was going to separate until we decided to put the clamps defensively and on the boards,” he said. “And we hadn’t done that. We may have picked up the offensive scoring output, but … we haven’t had many (blowout) games like this. And it was because of that (defensive) performance today.”
Freshman center Ido Flaisher (eight points, seven rebounds) was effective in the first half and had an impressive putback in the second.
“Getting position, waiting for my time, and my teammates looking for me,” said Flaisher, who shot 3-for-5 for his most points since the season opener against SIU-Edwardsville. “I really enjoy playing with them.”
UH pushed an eight-point halftime lead to as many as 26 points in defeating UCSB for the fourth straight time.
Scout teamers Zach Buscher and Brian Garrett scored in the waning moments. For Garrett, a junior college transfer, a corner 3 was his first D-I field goal.
