For the Hawaii basketball team, the break-even point was San Luis Obispo, Calif.
Juan Munoz hit five 3-point shots and Hawaii held Cal Poly to 27.6% shooting for an 80-51 basketball victory before 1,122 at Mott Athletics Center.
After starting league play at 2-6, the ’Bows have won five of six to improve to 7-7 in the Big West. If the league’s eight-team postseason tournament were played today, the ’Bows would be the fifth seed.
“Really pleased with the win,” associate head coach John Montgomery said. “It’s hard to win here. It gets us back to .500. We’ve got six games left (in the regular season) to keep moving up in the standings.”
The Mustangs fell to 4-22 overall and 0-14 in the Big West. Since winning their league opener in December 2022, the Mustangs have suffered 32 Big West losses in a row. Cal Poly was without its leading scorer, 6-foot-8 point guard Kobe Sanders, who was scratched because of an ailment. Joel Armotrading, Cal Poly’s 6-10 rim protector, also was not available to play. The Bows were without point guard JoVon McClanahan, who missed his third consecutive game because of a shoulder injury, and 7-foot-1 Mor Seck, who suffered a season-ending ACL injury three weeks ago.
“We’re down guys, they’re down guys,” UH coach Eran Ganot said. “It’s a humbling game. We talked to our guys about rising to the challenge. You’ve seen throughout the years, guys step up when guys are down.”
Montgomery revealed there were two messages: be wary of the undermanned Mustangs and get off to a good start in the second half.
“We made sure the guys stayed focused and locked in,” Montgomery said. “We used the example that when we didn’t have JoVon, guys stepped up. We wanted to make sure the guys were dialed in, and how big a win on the road this would be.”
After leading 35-20 at the end of an inconsistent first half, the ’Bows scored 16 of the first 20 points after the intermission. Munoz buried two 3s during that opening second-half surge.
“I thought the start of the second half was key,” Montgomery said. “The first half, both teams were struggling to score. It was a physical battle. The second half, we opened up the floodgates. In the first five minutes we knocked down some 3s and got in transition and got some stops. We built the lead to 20-plus, and kind of held off from there.”
Ganot said: “The start of the second half was awesome. We challenged them to set the tone in the first five minutes. It was one of our best five minutes of any half.”
The ’Bows dominated all phases. Munoz, in his eighth consecutive start, hit shots from deep and deeper. He also took a key charge in the first half.
Justin McKoy, who was named the league’s Player of the Week on Monday, hit six of nine shots and finished with 18 points and five rebounds. Bernardo da Silva scored only eight points, but he provided the highlight play with a windmill dunk on a fast break. Ryan Rapp scored all 10 of his points in the second half.
“Our No. 1 key was transition defense,” said Montgomery, whose ’Bows limited the Mustangs to six fastbreak points, including two in the second half. “They run a lot at home. They had to play in the halfcourt every possession. We did a good job of doubling (center Tuukka) Jaakkola. It took them out of what we thought they wanted to do. We thought they were going to throw it inside and play through him. We did a good job of doubling and making their perimeter guys take tough shots.”
Jaakkola drew nine fouls, but missed seven of 11 free throws and finished with 10 points. Aidan Prukop, who had a bandage on his shooting hand, shot 0-for-5. The Mustangs’ best outside shooter, Jarred Hyder, was 1-for-4 from behind the arc.
BIG WEST MEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
UC Irvine 11 2 .846 — 18 7
UC San Diego 10 3 .769 1 16 9
UC Davis 10 4 .714 1½ 15 10
Long Beach St. 8 5 .615 3 16 9
CS Northridge 8 6 .571 3½ 17 9
Hawaii 7 7 .500 4½ 15 11
UCSB 6 8 .429 5½ 13 11
UC Riverside 6 8 . 429 5½ 11 15
CSU Bakersfield 5 9 .357 6½ 10 15
CS Fullerton 4 9 .308 7 11 14
Cal Poly 0 14 .000 11½ 4 22
Thursday
Hawaii 80, Cal Poly 51
Long Beach State 78, UC Davis 74
Cal State Northridge 76, Cal State Bakersfield 71
UC San Diego 61, UC Santa Barbara 46
UC Riverside 81, Cal State Fullerton 73
Saturday
Hawaii at UC Santa Barbara, 11 a.m.
UC Riverside at UC Davis
Cal State Fullerton at UC San Diego
Long Beach State at CS Northridge
Cal State Bakersfield at UC Irvine
HAWAII 80, CAL POLY 51
RAINBOW WARRIORS (15-11, 7-7)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Munoz 21 7-12 1-2 3 2 1 20
McKoy 26 6-9 5-6 5 0 1 18
Rapp 22 3-6 4-6 5 1 2 10
da Silva 19 4-7 0-0 6 1 3 8
Coleman 19 2-4 0-0 1 2 2 4
Williams 25 2-4 2-2 1 3 3 7
Beattie 26 2-4 1-2 6 2 4 6
Jacobs 20 2-2 0-0 2 1 1 5
Rouhliadeff 10 1-3 0-0 2 0 5 2
Svetozarevic 7 0-1 0-0 2 0 0 0
Cotton 5 0-0 0-0 1 0 0 0
TEAM 3
TOTALS 200 29-52 13-18 37 12 22 80
MUSTANGS (4-22, 0-14)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Jones 35 3-14 5-610 1 2 11
Jaakkola 31 3-8 4-11 9 2 3 10
Hyder 30 3-11 1-1 1 0 1 8
Haller 20 2-5 0-0 1 0 2 6
Prukop 15 0-5 0-0 2 0 0 0
Page 20 3-8 2-2 1 1 1 8
Bizimana 8 1-1 1-1 1 0 1 3
Spears 5 1-1 0-0 0 0 2 3
Price, Jr. 21 0-4 1-2 5 0 3 1
Jory 13 0-1 1-2 2 0 1 1
Mosley 2 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
TEAM 2
TOTALS 200 16-58 15-25 34 4 16 51
Key — min: minutes played; fg-a: field goals
made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; r: rebounds; a: assists; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points.
Halftime — Hawaii 35, Cal Poly 20
3-point goals — Hawaii 9-21 (Munoz 5-9,
Beattie 1-1, Jacobs 1-1, Williams 1-2,
McKoy 1-3, Coleman 0-1, Rouhliadeff 0-1,
Svetozarevic 0-1, Rapp 0-2). Cal Poly 4-17
(Haller 2-3, Spears 1-1, Hyder 1-4, Page
0-2, Prukop 0-3, Jones 0-4). Steals — Hawaii 8 (da Silva 3, Munoz 2, Jacobs,
McKoy, Williams). Cal Poly 6 (Jones 3,
Page 2, Spears). Blocked shots — Hawaii
2 (Jacobs, Rouhliadeff). Cal Poly 1 (Jaakkola). Turnovers — Hawaii 13 (Williams 5,
Rouhliadeff 2, Jacobs, Beattie, Coleman,
McKoy, Munoz, Team). Cal Poly 13 (Jaakkola 5, Jones 4, Hyder 2, Jory 2). Technical fouls — none. Officials — Martin
Cichocki, Nate Harris, David Hall. A —
1,122.
