In a rally in the valley, the Hawaii basketball team overcame the loss of a co-captain and a late deficit in regulation to pull out Thursday’s 94-86 victory over UC San Diego in SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
“I’m so happy we got the win,” guard Ryan Rapp said. “We needed a win like that. Just to grit it out.”
The ’Bows, who trailed most of the game, were down 78-75 when point guard Juan Munoz got the ball in the left corner. Munoz swished the tying 3 with 10.6 left in regulation to force the extra period.
In overtime, Rapp hit two 3s and Justin McKoy made three big defensive plays to help the ’Bows knock off the league’s second-best team. The ’Bows improved to 13-11 overall and 5-7 in the Big West. The Tritons fell to 15-9 and 9-3. In their fourth — and final — year of a transition to Division I, the Tritons are ineligible for the league’s eight-team postseason tournament.
The ’Bows, who climbed into the sixth seed, were without point guard JoVon McClanahan, who suffered a shoulder injury in practice.
But Kody Williams, a walk-on sophomore, filled the role of first point guard off the bench. Williams easily reached two season highs when he scored 13 points in 24 minutes, 2 seconds. Williams went 5-for-7 from the floor, including sinking two of three 3s.
The ’Bows also received a lift from guard Noel Coleman, who was held scoreless for the third time this season in last Saturday’s loss to UC Irvine. Coleman scored 16 points, grabbed five rebounds and was the leader of the rotation that held UCSD’s prolific Bryce Pope to 10 points — 11.1 below his average in Big West games. Pope was 1-for-7 when guarded by Coleman.
McKoy, who alternated between power forward and center, provided the spark in overtime. With UH leading 82-80, McKoy rejected Hayden Gray’s baseline shot with 3:32 left.
It was 89-86 when UCSD’s Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones tried to add to his game-high 24 points. But blanketed by McKoy, Tait-Jones lost control of the ball on the baseline for a turnover.
With 20 seconds remaining, McKoy forced Tyler McGhie into shooting an airball, taking the air out of the Tritons’ final push.
“Just the hustle,” McKoy said. “I made sure I did my part.”
Rapp’s first 3 — apparently, a no-look shot — extended the ’Bows’ lead to 85-80. His dagger shot with 34 seconds left made it 92-86.
“When you’re in the flow of the game like that, you don’t really think about it,” Rapp said. “The first one, I didn’t even see the rim. I just threw it up there. I base it off the crowd reaction.”
UCSD coach Eric Olen said: “We just couldn’t finish them off. We had chances in the first half to maybe get control of the game. And then they hit some shots to kind of get it back tight. … You’re never perfect in these games. It is what it is. They played well. They made the plays down the stretch. Munoz with the big 3 to send it into overtime. I thought Rapp hit huge 3s. They deserve a lot of credit. McKoy was awesome. They played well.”
McKoy said the ’Bows wanted to win for the ailing McClanahan.
“It was motivating,” McKoy said. “You want to win for him. JoVon wants to be out there more than anybody. Just going out there to play hard for him. We knew he was kind of like a game-time decision. … We knew we had to play hard for him.”
Following opponents’ scripts from two of four previous games, the Tritons attacked the low post in the first half to take a 37-34 lead into the intermission.
The Tritons scored 28 of their first-half points in the paint, hitting 63.6% of their 2-point shots. The rest of the first-half production came on McGhie’s 3 from the right wing and the Tritons’ 6-for-6 shooting from the line.
BIG WEST MEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
UC Irvine 11 1 .917 — 18 6
UC Davis 10 2 .833 1 15 8
UC San Diego 9 3 .750 2 15 9
Long Beach St. 6 5 .545 4½ 14 9
CS Northridge 6 6 .500 5 15 9
UCSB 6 6 .500 5 13 9
Hawaii 5 7 .417 6 13 11
CS Fullerton 4 7 .364 6½ 11 12
CSU Bakersfield 4 8 .333 7 9 14
UC Riverside 4 8 . 333 7 9 15
Cal Poly 0 12 .000 11 4 20
Saturday
UC Davis at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
Cal State Fullerton at Cal State Bakersfield
Cal Poly at Long Beach State
UC Irvine at UC Riverside
Cal State Northridge at UC Santa Barbara
HAWAII 94, UC SAN DIEGO 86, OT
TRITONS (15-9, 9-3)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Pope 45 5-16 0-0 1 0 2 10
Gray 40 4-9 5-6 3 4 3 13
Tait-Jones 41 6-812-17 6 3 1 24
Brooks 26 4-7 0-0 5 0 4 9
Nwaokorie 33 5-9 1-1 1 1 5 12
McCormick 3 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
Degraaf 2 0-0 2-2 1 0 0 2
McGhie 34 7-11 0-1 3 1 0 16
TEAM 3
TOTALS 225 31-60 20-27 24 9 15 86
RAINBOW WARRIORS (13-11, 5-7)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
McKoy 38 6-9 9-11 9 4 3 22
Coleman 42 7-15 0-1 5 0 1 16
da Silva 37 4-6 2-4 8 0 3 10
Rapp 34 4-9 3-5 7 2 4 13
Munoz 24 4-11 0-0 3 2 2 10
Williams 24 5-7 1-3 1 2 3 13
Beattie 11 2-2 0-0 3 0 2 4
Rouhliadeff 10 2-2 0-0 1 0 2 4
Jacobs 5 1-2 0-0 1 0 0 2
TEAM 2
TOTALS 225 35-63 15-24 40 10 20 94
Halftime — UC San Diego 37, Hawaii 34
Regulation — UC San Diego 78, Hawaii
78
3-point goals — UC San Diego 4-18 (McGhie 2-5, Brooks 1-3, Nwaokorie 1-3, Gray
0-1, Pope 0-6). Hawaii 9-21 (Williams 2-3,
Rapp 2-3, Munoz 2-5, Coleman 2-6,
McKoy 1-3, Jacobs 0-1). Steals — UC San
Diego 7 (Gray 2, Pope 2, Tait-Jones 2,
Brooks). Hawaii 3 (Coleman, Munoz,
Rapp). Blocked shots — UC San Diego 1
(Brooks). Hawaii 6 (McKoy 3, da Silva,
Rapp, Rouhliahdeff). Turnovers — UC San
Diego (Gray 2, Nwaokorie 2, McGhie, TaitJones, Team). Hawaii 10 (McKoy 4, Beattie,
Coleman, da Silva, Jacobs, Munoz, Rapp).
Technical fouls — none. Officials —
Deron White, Jeff Ketchu, Jimmy Casas,
Travis Schatzman. A — 2,483.
