One moment, Israel Kamakawiwo‘ole’s peaceful rendition of "Over the Rainbow" started playing on the Stan Sheriff Center loudspeakers.

The next, fists started flying.

It made for a surreal scene immediately after the Hawaii women’s basketball team’s 59-56 loss to West Virginia in the finale of the Bank of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine Classic on Sunday night. Though no serious injuries were reported nor arrests made, things took another twist when UH athletic director Ben Jay was hurt trying to break up the altercation — which started and stopped behind the WVU bench on at least two occasions when at least one UH fan got into it with the WVU staff members and their few dozen Mountaineers friends and family.

Jay was doubled over on the Sheriff court for several moments while trainers and paramedics attended to his back, which he said "spasmed up" when someone hit him with something. On Monday, Jay worked from home and was still in pain.

"Very sore today," Jay texted to the Star-Advertiser on Monday when asked about his condition. "Still experiencing mild to severe back pain. Took a very hard shot."

Meanwhile, UH and West Virginia officials said they are investigating the incident that started during the tournament postgame awards ceremony.

A crowd of 771 was on hand to see UH senior forward Kamilah Jackson become the program’s second career 1,000-point, 1,000-rebound player in defeat — and the ugly aftermath following the teams’ handshakes.

In a statement issued by UH on Monday, Jay said, "We apologize to our fans and our visitors from West Virginia for the unfortunate incident that occurred following our women’s basketball game last night. We’re pleased that no one was seriously injured and we appreciate those who assisted with keeping it from escalating further. We will speak to the parties involved and take the appropriate action to address this particular situation and help avoid future incidents. Until all facts are gathered, we will have no further comment on this matter."

West Virginia AD Oliver Luck said in a statement on Monday, "I have spoken to the University of Hawaii Director of Athletics as well as with our women’s basketball head coach (Mike Carey) and team administrator. Our team is currently traveling back from Hawaii, and we are in the process of obtaining more facts about the unfortunate incident that took place after the game and prior to the trophy presentation. We will continue to work with the University of Hawaii officials to gather all the facts and bring the situation to a close."

During and after the fracas, several people voiced concern about a slow security response time and a lack of preventative measures during the game. Rainbow Wahine coach Laura Beeman was among them.

"I don’t know why there wasn’t security in here," she said. "With the amount of heckling that was going on, I wished someone from West Virginia would have said something to the (scorers) table so we could have made a phone call. I had no idea what was going on.

"So we need to have security behind the benches. That’s just all there is to it."

In the fight aftermath, arena manager Rich Sheriff was asked about the allotment of security staff for the Sunday game. He said at the time he’d have to check with an assistant to know the exact count, but "we don’t have much less than we normally do."

Sheriff, like Jay, waded into the fray attempting to break up the squabble.

"Typically, we haven’t had incident in women’s basketball," Sheriff said. "It’s just one of those things. Now we’re going to have to look at our security plan and probably beef it up. Just make sure our people are doing everything they can so it doesn’t happen again.

"In 19 years we haven’t had anything like that. It’s just unfortunate because it was a great game. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail in the future."

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The Star-Advertiser’s Ferd Lewis contributed to this report.

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Read Brian McInnis’ Court Sense at staradvertiser.com/courtsense.