DAVIS, Calif. » UC Davis sophomore forward Clint Bozner grabbed the rebound and went back up for the dunk attempt. He couldn’t quite get there, slamming the ball off the rim.

And then, it bounced in.

The shot, coming with four seconds left in Thursday’s game, was both meaningless and illustrative of the Aggies’ 89-65 win over Hawaii. A hustle play by UC Davis leads to an offensive rebound and the ball going in the hole. It happened again and again and again.

"Traditionally, that’s been our strength," Rainbow Warriors coach Gib Arnold said. "Tonight it was our weakness and it was their strength. That’s how you beat teams, is you out-physical them and you’re quicker to the ball. Giving up 17 offensive rebounds, I don’t know if you can win many games when you do that."

You read that right — UC Davis pulled down 17 offensive rebounds on Thursday night against the best rebounding team in the Big West Conference. Worse for the Rainbow Warriors, the Aggies entered the game third from last in rebounding margin in the conference. UC Davis finished with a 38-29 rebounding advantage.

"They’re one of the top 20 teams in the nation in rebounding," Aggies coach Jim Les said. "To out-rebound them by nine and to do that with a community effort. That leads to some pretty good offense. We were able to get out and run and score on the transition."

UC Davis also happens to be one of the best 3-point shooting teams in the Big West, and that was on display all night. Ryan Sypkens hit five of seven — the first one made him the all-time UC Davis leader in both single-season and career 3-pointers. The Aggies made 11 of 19 (58 percent) from long-range. Hawaii hit just seven of 22 (32 percent).

"It’s really tough when you don’t make them and then they’re shooting a high percentage," Arnold said. "And they shot close to 60 percent tonight."

Said the Warriors Brandon Spearman, "They were hitting shots. They basically controlled the game."

That was a similar plot to the Jan. 19 meeting in Hawaii — the Aggies made 16 of 26 (62 percent) 3-pointers in that game. Corey Hawkins poured in 40 that night. He had 21 on Thursday.

"That’s two games in a row where they’ve been able to light us up from outside," Arnold said. "We’ve just got to keep working on that and getting better at that."

UC Davis (10-13, 6-6 Big West) had five Aggies score in double-figures. Sypkens had 17. Ryan Howley pulled down 10 rebounds, including four on the offensive end.

UC Davis got out to an early lead and just kept building on it. It was 24-15 midway through the first half, and late in the half, the Aggies began putting the game away. With 4.8 seconds to go in the half, and the shot clock running down, Tyler Les (son of Jim) put up a desperation 3-pointer. Spearman kept his arms straight up but moved into Les’ landing and was called for a foul. Les made all three free throws to make the score 47-31 at halftime.

As the game got out of hand, UC Davis got to use its bench liberally — Bozner’s 23 minutes were a season high. Meanwhile, Hawaii got more and more frustrated. With 6 minutes, 11 seconds left in the game, Vander Joaquim responded to a foul by Bonzer and was called for a technical, his fifth foul of the game. With 3:43 to go, Spearman was called for a Flagrant 1 foul on Hawkins.

Hauns Brereton led the Warriors (15-10, 9-5) with 17 points. Spearman finished with 12 and Ozren Pavlovic came off the bench to score 10.

Next up is Saturday’s game at Pacific, who is tied with UH for second in the Big West. Arnold said his team, which had won five in a row coming into Thursday, shouldn’t have a hangover.

"We’ll bounce back, this team has done it all year," he said. "This is just one game, albeit an important game when we’re trying to play for a conference championship. We’re going to play an ever better team in Pacific, a better record, a better home court team. It’s going to be a big task for us but I believe we’ll be up to it.

"I told the guys in the locker room, ‘We’ve got 48 hours to get our minds and bodies right and go battle against a really good Pacific team.’ "