It rained in Manoa on Saturday afternoon.
That evening, there was a drought in the Stan Sheriff Center.
The Hawaii basketball team lost its aim in the second half of a 49-43 loss to UC Riverside before 5,467 fans on senior night.
The lowest output since a 58-37 loss to Oklahoma State in in 1998 dropped the Rainbow Warriors to 16-12 overall and 7-7 in the Big West. The Highlanders, who fell to the ’Bows by a point nine nights earlier, are 16-15 and 6-9.
“Most of the game we couldn’t get a basket,” said head coach Eran Ganot, whose ’Bows shot just 20.8% (five of 24) after the intermission. “Right now, we’re very offensively challenged.”
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The ’Bows had taken a 40-39 lead when guard Eddie Stansberry hit three free throws after being fouled outside of the arc with 4:38 to play.
But the Highlanders scored 10 of the final 13 points to win going away.
The ’Bows endured a drought in which they went 9 minutes and 40 seconds between Dawson Carper’s dunk with 10:13 to play and Samuta Avea’s fadeaway jumper with 22.6 seconds left. By then, the Highlanders had seized command with an inside-outside approach that left the ’Bows out of position.
“We got good looks tonight,” UH point guard Drew Buggs said, “we just didn’t knock ’em down.”
Buggs was 3-for-14 and finished with eight points. Stansberry missed seven of eight shots, including five of six from behind the 3-point stripe. Zigmars Raimo, who opened at center before alternating at the four, scored eight points in the first half and one point after that.
“Buggs is probably my favorite player in the league,” UCR coach David Patrick said. “You know that he’s driving in there and can score or find shooters. We wanted to find Stansberry early in transition, which I think we did. I think Dikymbe Martin didn’t score it the way he’s capable of, but he did a great job not helping off Stansberry.”
Stansberry said: “We have to find our swag. We’re a good team. I still have confidence even though we didn’t get the result we wanted tonight. We’re capable of winning games. We had a little bit of slippage and it cost us.”
The Highlanders’ strategy was to play at a deliberate tempo while 7-foot-1, 265-pound Callum McRae or 6-10, 240-pound Angus McWilliam set roots in the low post. Either would back-back-back into the paint for a turn-around shot or throw out to the perimeter. The third option was to feed 6-9 Arinze Chidom on cuts. Chidom scored 12 of his 14 points in the second half, many on second-chance shots.
“He’s been big,” Patrick said of Chidom. “Our biggest nemesis — and some of it is his — is when he’s in foul trouble sitting on the bench in second halves. So he’s gotta do a better job, and we have to do a better job of adjusting to referees. … But I think his size in there, with Callum McRae and McWilliams, we have three guys 6-10, 6-11, 7 feet who we can get second-chance baskets from, which helped us down the stretch tonight,”
The Highlanders scored 30 points in the paint.
Meanwhile, the ’Bows had difficulty manufacturing points from anywhere.
“You hold a team to 49 points — they got some free throws later — you feel you have a chance to win,” Ganot said. “We have to find our offense. We have to find our groove if we’re going to make the next move. We have to continue to defend like we’ve had. But right now, we’re not going to make that move until we start jelling offensively.”
Ganot added: “We missed some shots, and it caused guys to be hesitant. We have to get some swag back there. We did well in transition, but we didn’t finish near the rim. There was a stretch to start the second half where we got some good looks. We just didn’t knock them down. I thought that snowballed for us.”
