After they formally retired his jersey, hanging No. 33 in the Stan Sheriff Center rafters, Bob Nash sought to rally his alma mater to a victory Saturday night.
“Got to get a win tonight,” Nash said over the public address system, whipping up the crowd as the halftime ceremony concluded.
Alas, not even Nash’s exhortations, recalling a time long ago when he used to fire up the crowd from the bench as an assistant coach — or the fervent backing of the largest home crowd of the season, a white-out gathering of 5,949 — could prevent the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team from dropping its fourth consecutive game, a 70-63 loss to front-running UC Irvine.
The Rainbow Warriors longest losing streak since the 2017-18 season dropped them to 14-10 and, more importantly, 5-5 in fading from the Big West Conference regular-season championship race.
What had the appearance of a showdown for first place two weeks ago when the ’Bows were 5-1 in league, now leaves UH 31⁄2 games behind the defending champion Anteaters (17-10, 9-2 conference) in the standings with six games remaining, four of them on the road.
More telling is that UH is just 11⁄2 games out of ninth and last place in the tightly bunched Big West. The top eight earn berths in the March 12-14 Big West tournament.
Just as the ’Bows have chased these Anteaters for parts of four seasons now without much success, so it went Saturday night as UH soon fell behind and was forced into pursuit mode for the final 35 minutes in losing to UC Irvine for the eighth time in the past nine games.
Four times this season the ’Bows were able to come back in games where they trailed with five minutes or less and win games. In this one, five times the ’Bows were able to shrink deficits of as many as 13 points down to just three, but never managed to get closer to fully put the pressure of playing in front of the Big West’s biggest crowd on the Anteaters.
Zigmars Raimo got it to 66-63 with 36 seconds remaining, but UH came up short thereafter on missed shots and a turnover as UC Irvine hit its final free throws.
Three nights after managing a 31⁄2-year offensive low of 49 points against Long Beach State, the ’Bows regained some of their offense but lacked the necessary 3-point touch to challenge UC Irvine.
Not even the return of wing Samuta Avea, after missing five games with a back injury, could fire up UH’s long-range shooting. Avea had six points and four rebounds in his return as a starter, but between him and Eddie Stansberry, UH’s two top 3-point marksmen were just 1-for-8 from 3-point range.
It wasn’t until the final 17 minutes, 20 seconds when Drew Buggs connected to close it to 36-29 that UH got its first 3-pointer after seven tries. For the game UH made five of 15 3-point attempts.
Now, the ’Bows head out on the road next week to UC Riverside and Long Beach State.
No longer is their task the once lofty charge of trying to win the conference regular-season championship. After four consecutive losses, the challenge is now to keep from descending deeper into the tightly packed standings and the scramble to make the tournament.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
