ANAHEIM, CALIF. >> After months of battling uncertainty — and learning how to win all over again — Hawaii finally hit the wall.

It came in the form of Long Beach State’s more physical, more imposing front line in a 73-62 loss to the 49ers in the Big West tournament first round on Thursday at the Honda Center.

More specifically, it came in the form of a 19-2 run that put away the Rainbow Warriors after the game was tied at 54, bringing the 2016-17 campaign to a swift close.

At 14-16, it is UH’s first losing season in seven years. UH won half the games it did the previous March, when it took down LBSU in the Big West championship game and won the program’s first NCAA Tournament game.

“The finality hits you pretty hard,” said UH coach Eran Ganot, whose team was heavily reconstructed under the shadow of an NCAA postseason ban that was lifted only last Friday. “Give credit to Long Beach State for a hard-fought win. Lot of respect there. They did what they needed to do and they made big plays down the stretch. We didn’t, they did.”

For about 31 minutes of Thursday’s game, the ’Bows, not totally expecting to even be playing at the Honda Center, had designs on a fairy-tale repeat run to March Madness. They led by two at halftime despite pervasive foul trouble. They used a 6-0 spurt to tie the game at 54 and, if they could bail enough water, their leaky ship could sail a little while more.

But the 49ers, who shot 53.1 percent, refused to be UH’s March victim for a third straight year. Forwards Temidayo Yussuf, Roschon Prince and Barry Ogalue fired broadsides at the ’Bows from point-blank range, and UH was sunk.

Senior wing Noah Allen closed his one-year UH career with 21 points on 7-for-14 shooting and four steals. He scored 10 straight UH points during a stretch late in the first half, but the 49ers did a better job of taking away his space for driving lanes in the second period.

Allen hugged the UH coaching staff when he checked out for the last time in the final seconds.

“To be embraced by my teammates and the fan base and the coaches has been really special for me and something I’ll take with me forever,” Allen said.

Gibson Johnson converted his first five shots and finished with 18 points on 8-for-13 shooting, but he and Allen were the only UH players in double figures.

Contributing to UH’s limited depth, forward Jack Purchase was considered questionable to play after rolling his right ankle in last Saturday’s nine-point loss at LBSU. He took his usual place in the starting lineup, but scored just two points in 25 minutes.

“Certainly it would’ve been nice to have him at full strength, but he gave everything he could,” Ganot said.

After getting blitzed in the paint at The Pyramid, UH resolved not to allow Yussuf and the other 49ers such deep position. Yussuf still didn’t miss — he was 4-for-4, bringing his total in the last two games to 13-for-13 — but he didn’t go off, either. The surprise was Ogalue, who shot 7-for-7 on putbacks and breakaways.

“We knew they were going to make some adjustments off of how well we played scoring in the paint last week,” Yussuf said. “We came in knowing we would have to move the ball, share the rock.”

Point guard Justin Bibbins was the beneficiary. He scored a career-high 27 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the field and 9-for-9 from the line, carrying his team into a semifinal matchup with top-seeded UC Irvine today.

Bibbins said his mother messaged him a newspaper picture Thursday morning showing him hanging his head after his freshman-year loss to UH in 2015.

“It said ‘not this year,’” Bibbins said of the accompanying text. “So that was nice. That always motivates me. I just knew this year, we couldn’t lose to them again for three years straight. Happy to finally get that off our back and get a win against them.”

Ogalue dunked it on a fast break for a six-point lead, but UH forced turnovers and surged to tie it at 54 on a fake-and-take by Johnson.

But LBSU responded with force. Ogalue got fouled on a putback attempt to beat the shot clock and made both for a 60-54 49ers lead. Yussuf put back a Bibbins miss and scored on a take to the basket, then Prince bulled his way to the rim for a 66-55 lead.

The rout was on. Noah Blackwell tacked on a 3 and Bibbins’ two free throws, while the ’Bows continued to miss theirs.

“I think maybe our depth wore out a little bit, because that’s happened the last couple games,” Ganot said. “But then there’s been critical stretches with big swings, where we miss free throws, they make free throws, we miss some shots around the rim, they make them. It was a culmination of that.”

Key — fg-a: field goals made-attempted; fta: free throws made-attempted; r: rebounds; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points; a: assists; to: turnovers; min: minutes played. Halftime — Hawaii 35, Long Beach State 33 3-point goals — Hawaii 5-17 (Allen 2-4, Stepteau 1-1, Green 1-3, Drammeh 1-4, Owies 0-1, Purchase 0-4). Long Beach State 5-15 (Blackwell 3-8, Bibbins 2-4, Griffin 0-1, Payne 0-2). Steals — Hawaii 9 (Allen 4, Owies 3, Drammeh 2). Long Beach State 5 (Blackwell 2, J. Jackson, Ogalue, Payne). Blocked shots — Hawaii 3 (Johnson, Owies, Purchase). Long Beach State 3 (Ogalue, Riggins, Shropshire). Turnovers — Hawaii 15 (Drammeh 4, Allen 3, Purchase 3, Flaisher, Johnson, Owies, Raimo, Team). Long Beach State 17 (Yussuf 4, Bibbins 3, Payne 3, Prince 3, Blackwell, Ogalue, Riggins, Shropshire). Technical fouls — none. Officials — Jeff Wooten, Ken Ditty, Juan Corral. A — 3,486.