ANAHEIM, CALIF. >> In the Honda Center corridor that was as vacated as his hopes, Hawaii basketball coach Eran Ganot struggled to capsulize the abrupt end to the Rainbow Warriors’ season.
“It’s really tough,” said Ganot, whose ’Bows fell to Long Beach State 68-66 in Thursday’s opening round of the Big West tournament. “I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s brutal. It is brutal. We’ve been on both sides. Unfortunately, in back-to-back years, we’ve had this painful feeling.”
Jordan Roberts hit the decisive shot on a pull-up jumper with a half-second remaining. The 49ers’ advancement to tonight’s semifinals was finalized when 6-foot-9 Mason Riggins swatted Drew Buggs’ attempted inbounds heave as the horn sounded.
“The emotions were really everywhere,” Roberts said of the parting shot.
The dejection was overwhelming in UH’s postgame locker room. Buggs was among the players emerging with moistened eyes. “It was tough, tough,” Ganot said. “Life’s tough, and (that loss is) tough. It’s hard to be in that locker room, but it’s part of the deal.”
It was a startling turnaround for the ’Bows, who seized the momentum from the opening tipoff through the game’s first 15 minutes. Their four-out offense was on hyperspeed, thinning the 49ers’ defense with side-to-side passes. The 49ers countered with a man-to-man, then two types of zones, and finally a 94-foot press.
While the results were not immediate — the ’Bows’ 13-2 lead eventually widened to 18 with five minutes remaining in the first half — the trap would be the pulled string that unraveled UH’s offensive rhythm. Asked what prompted the activation of the full-court press, LBSU coach Dan Monson said, “desperation.”
“In these games,” Monson said, “you have to be the aggressor. That’s not jacking shots. That’s getting rebounds, getting deflections, disrupting the other team. Everybody thinks it’s the (offensive) team that gets in the flow. It’s not. It’s a defensive team team that lets you get into a flow. We let them get into way too good of a flow to start the game. We tried man, zone, traps in the first 10 minutes. Nothing worked. It was the next step to try to go to a full court.”
The 49ers closed to 37-29 at the intermission. But UH forward Jack Purchase, who was assessed his third foul late in the opening half, was the centerpiece of a 7-0 run that extended the lead to 59-47. After Buggs tapped a rebound, Purchase used a pump fake and then swished a 3. He then fed Zigmars Raimo for a layup. Soon after, Purchase stole a dribble from LBSU’s Deishuan Booker, leading to Eddie Stansberry’s coast-to-coast sprint for a layup.
“We were up 12, and then it reared its ugly head again,” Ganot said of the ’Bows’ unforced turnovers and iffy shot choices.
The ’Bows entered as mindful ball-handlers. But they turned the ball over 15 times, leading to 15 points. After converting on nine of their first 10 shots inside the arc, they finished at 30.3 percent from that distance. The press delayed the ’Bows’ initiating the half-court attack by as much as eight seconds, and led to two attempts with a second on the shot clock and a 10-second violation.
The ’Bows also had trouble keeping their vow of keeping the 49ers off the free-throw line. Booker and Riggins each drew six fouls. Booker converted all seven of his free throws, extending his streak of 1-pointers to 53, a Big West record.
“They shot 28 free throws,” Ganot said, “and that’s a big part of the game plan.”
A 16-4 surge, with the last two points coming on Drew Cobbs’ free throws, put the 49ers ahead 63-61 with 3:07 to play.
The ’Bows trailed 66-64 until Buggs drew a second defender, then flipped a pass to Raimo for the tying layup with 22.8 seconds left.
The 49ers called time with 15.6 seconds to play, setting up a play of Booker’s choosing. In 16 Big West regular-season games, Booker averaged 23.3 points. Booker received the inbounds pass, then faced a web of defenders. In a similar situation against UC Riverside, Booker forced a shot that missed.
“Coming out (of the timeout),” Booker recalled Roberts saying, “he told me his guy was going to hedge pretty hard, and to find him, he’s going to be open.”
Booker fed Roberts, who drove the lane. “I pulled up because of the way they closed,” Robert said. “I didn’t want to have a charge or anything.”
Instead, Roberts’ shot sent the ’Bows into the offseason.
“It didn’t happen tonight, and it’s going to hurt,” Ganot said. “We’ll move forward, and they’ll move forward.”
UC Irvine 63, UC Riverside 44
The top-seeded Anteaters scored 14 of the final 17 points of the first half to break a 19-all tie and cruise into the semifinals.
Collin Welp came off the bench to score 15 points to lead the Anteaters’ balanced attack. Max Hazzard and Evan Leonard each added 13 points.
UCR guard Dikymbe Martin, who entered averaging 15.2 points per game, was held scoreless in 29 minutes, missing all seven of his shots, including three from behind the 3-point stripe.
The Anteaters won their 14th in a row to improve to 28-5.
UC Santa Barbara 71, Cal State Northridge 68
Max Heidegger scored only seven points, but his two free throws with 16 seconds left sealed the second-seeded Gauchos’ quarterfinal victory.
The Matadors closed to 69-68 after Rodney “Rocket” Henderson launched a 3 with 20 seconds left. Terrell Gomez then fouled Heidegger, who hit both free throws. Gomez’s 3-point attempt failed with three seconds remaining, and UCSB’s Ar’Mond Davis grabbed his fifth rebound as time expired.
“This isn’t a one-man show,” UCSB coach Joe Pasternack said of Heidegger’s 1-for-9 shooting. “It wasn’t his night, but he hit a huge 3 for us and two free throws for us.”
Davis, a graduate transfer from Alabama, finished with a team-high 19 points. Amadou Sow contributed 16 points and 11 rebounds for the Gauchos. CSUN freshman post Lamine Diane finished with 22 points and 17 rebounds.
Cal State Fullerton 75, UC Davis 71, OT
Guards Khalil Ahmad and Kyle Allman combined for 52 points, each hitting nine free throws, to boost the third-seeded Titans into tonight’s semifinal.
Ahmad had 32 points and Allman finished with 20.
Davis guard Joe Mooney parlayed Matt Neufeld’s offensive rebound into a layup to tie it at 67 with 25 seconds left in the second half and force overtime.
Allman opened the extra period with a three-point play, and the Titans never trailed after that. The Titans made only one field goal in OT.
“Even though we only had one bucket, I thought we had some crucial plays where we got to the free-throw line and were able to score at the free-throw line and then allow our defense to get set,” Fullerton coach Dedrique Taylor said.
UCD guard TJ Shorts scored 28 points and drew eight fouls. But he converted one of seven free throws, including crucial misses in overtime.
