Noah Allen’s flight back to Hawaii was just like his performance at Cal State Northridge, which also happened to match his soft-spoken personality.
Smooth.
A poor showing last Thursday at UC Riverside gave way to the best game of the senior’s career Saturday. Allen’s career-high-tying 34 points led the Rainbow Warriors to a four-point win at the Matadome, allowing UH (11-11, 5-4 Big West) to fly home with a 2-0 mark for its trip.
“It was real good for us. We were real happy,” Allen said Monday of the journey home that was in stark contrast to UH’s only previous mainland jaunt (0-2).
He noted he was never on such a successful trip in his three years at UCLA.
“That’s my actual first road sweep since I’ve been in college,” he said. “Thankful and hopeful we can make winning a more consistent thing.”
Allen was named Big West Player of the Week on Monday for the second time in four weeks, despite putting up seven points and five turnovers in a nine-point win at Riverside. His outing at CSUN — 11-for-17 shooting from the field (4-for-7 from 3) and 8-for-10 shooting from the line, with eight rebounds and two steals — was that good.
“Noah Allen for MVP,” teammate Gibson Johnson tweeted after the game.
That’s certainly in the discussion, with Allen leading all Big West players in conference-game scoring at 18.4. UH, which is in a two-way tie for fourth place, enjoys the season’s last two-game week at the Stan Sheriff Center starting Thursday against Cal Poly (7-16, 2-7).
Struggles in two games against Riverside, partly due to foul trouble, have been blips in an otherwise torrid tear for Allen. He scored 30-plus in three of the past six games (including twice on CSUN), becoming the 13th UH player to have three career 30-point games.
The record for 30-point games in a season is five, held by another UCLA transfer, Gavin Smith, in 1976-77. That’s also the UH career record, held by Smith and Tom Henderson (1972-73, 73-74).
It’s been a season of stratosphere-scraping highs and sea-level lows for Allen, who had a two-week stretch of figurative no-shows in late December and early January in which his total points (13) in five games were nearly matched by his turnovers (10). But UH coach Eran Ganot expects him to level out on the higher end of that range.
“He had that stretch of games I’m sure he would like back. But that’s part of what put him in this position today,” Ganot said. “When he has a game not to his liking or to his level, it won’t be as bad, because of his versatility, and he’ll bounce back quicker because he has experience going through that.”
He’s shown his full repertoire of late, with an outside shot to complement his dribble-drive game and an ability to post up smaller players.
Allen has been quick to credit teammates and his coaches whenever he’s asked about a strong performance. But even he had to acknowledge he hasn’t had a stretch of games like this in his career going back to his days at Palma (Calif.) High School.
“Umm, maybe in high school, but I don’t think it was this many games,” Allen said, thinking. “And definitely not in college, obviously. So it’s just a credit to my teammates and coaching staff, for sure.”
Allen is the third UH player in two seasons to receive multiple Big West weekly honors in the same year. Roderick Bobbitt and Stefan Jankovic were both honored twice in 2015-16.
