By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Anthony Carter, above, had his path to the basket
blocked the whole night. This time it happened to be
Rahsaan Smith who got in the way.

The University of Hawaii men's basketball team ran out to a quick lead and fired the capacity crowd into a frenzy at the Special Events Arena last night.

But then the bigger, deeper Bulldogs got downright nasty and buried the Rainbows like a bone in their own back yard for a 98-80 victory.

Fresno State improved to 19-10 overall and 11-4 in the WAC. If the Bulldogs win their regular-season finale at San Diego State tomorrow, they clinch the Pacific Division title and the division's top seed in next week's WAC tournament in Las Vegas.

The Rainbows fell to 19-6 overall and 11-4 in the WAC.

"I thought defensively we were super," Fresno State coach Jerry Tarkanian said. "I felt that we could win here, that we could defense their offense. But I had no idea that we could win this big."

Chris Herren was huge for the visitors with a game-high 35 points, which included 6-of-11 shooting from 3-point range - several from l-o-n-g range.

But it was Fresno State's man-to-man pressure defense, helped by its depth, that was the key.

"Their defense took us out of our offense again, just like they did over there," UH coach Riley Wallace said. "We prepared for it, but we just couldn't get it done."

Alika Smith led the Rainbows, who ran out to an 11-0 lead, with 23 points. But Anthony Carter was held to 12 points.

"I thought Dominick (Young) and Kendrick (Brooks) did a great, great job on Carter," Tarkanian said.

"My whole theme for the game was to keep Carter down," Young said. "Individually, we played great defense."

Rahsaan Smith, the Bulldogs'

6-10, 235-pound center, took advantage of the absence of injured Seth Sundberg to score 20 points and grab 11 rebounds.

Three other Rainbows were in double figures: Eric Ambrozich (15), Michael Robinson (13) and Danny Furlong (10), but it wasn't nearly enough to stop the relentless eight-man Fresno State rotation.

"This was great for us to win one on the road," Tarkanian said of his team, which has struggled away from Selland Arena. "Especially to come in here with so much on the line."

The Bulldogs scored four quick points to end the first half with a 42-37 lead and then went on a 18-2 run to start the second half.

"They had strength and quickness over us and they had a good game plan," Wallace said. "We never got into our halfcourt offense.

"We had the transition going at the start. It hurt us the way we ended the first half, instead of a one-point ballgame we're down by five. Then they don't even come out and warm up (for the second half). They just show up and blow us out early.

"We were down by 20 before we started to fight and got it back to 10, which shows what kind of heart this team has had all year. But they are too good to come back from that kind of deficit.

"We played a couple of bad halves of basketball the last two ballgames," Wallace said. "We're a very fragile team and we have to play better than we are and spill our guts on the floor every night - or we're very average."

Tarkanian still had plenty of praise for the Rainbows.

"I think Riley Wallace has done the coaching job of the year," he said. "It was a miracle that he kept this team together after Sundberg got hurt.

"The credit goes to Anthony Carter, Alika Smith and Riley. The more tape we watch, the better Anthony Carter is. I've seen him make incredible passes and make everybody else so good. I was a nervous wreck after watching him."

Young summed up the Bulldogs' new late-season confidence.

"This being on the road made it really sweet," he said. "And this guarantees a victory Saturday."