Sidelines
’Bows put the pain
in the paintHawaii passes Tech's rugged test, 57-53 THE night's other big event, the concert, was down the street, but we didn't miss out entirely. I swear you could hear Lionel Richie letting loose with that old Commodores classic loud and clear all the way from the Blaisdell.
Brick.
Hoooouuuuuse.
This game was banging and bruises, blocked shots, missed shots, fouls, flailing. The paint looked like the fight scenes from "Gangs of New York."
Phil Martin, the hero, was polite about it.
"The main emphasis was defense on the floor," Dr. Phil said.
You could say that. This game wasn't easy. Some games aren't, some wins aren't. Some nights all you can do is fight and claw.
Last night in a win against a tough Louisiana Tech team, Hawaii was hard.
The ball bounced and bodies crashed. This is where the game would be won, and was. In those split seconds when the ball belonged to no one. When defending position is everything. When every pick, planted or fought through, made all the difference.
Mark Campbell was half pinball, half defensive lineman, bouncing back and forth, fighting through one pick after another. It was like an old Batman episode. Bam! Pow!
"Mark never looked tired the whole night," Riley Wallace said.
Campbell played 40 minutes. So did Carl English. In the first half, English had four points. Campbell finished scoreless.
Hawaii spent the first half slamming into what Wallace called the "Louisiana tall pines."
"When you go down the middle they're not going to give you anything," Wallace said. "They're big athletes, and strong, and they made it tough for us to get anything. They did a lot of hacking and grabbing down their side."
That's the kind of game it was.
But then there was Dr. Phil. He was the only one with a swish. And then a first-half runner that tied the game. Then he took a forearm and still finished hard, a three-point play. He opened the second half with a dunk, and then a hook shot off an inbounds pass, and a steal.
"He carried us," Wallace said.
There were a few more swishes in the second half. The teams traded baskets. It got a little prettier. English looked like a star, with 3s, with two alley-oops, the second a dunk, in which he hung for a second, and let the guy know all about it.
But it was still a slugfest, and Tech, even with two starters fouling out early, went nowhere. Antonio Meeking. That guy was a moose. "I call him a half Shaq," said Martin, who drew the assignment of guarding Tech's big center.
When Meeking was fouled, and finished, to pull Louisiana Tech within two and a free throw to come, at 3:28 left, his coach did a flying long jump. Bulldogs within one.
But Hawaii only looks pretty, the teenage girls in the stands holding up pictures of English and Martin. Instead, Hawaii was hard, holding position, getting loose balls, winning. Last night, Martin made plays. English never came out.
The bruises were earned, and the win was, too.
"I'll get a lot of rest tonight," English said.
"He knows how not to give up, ever, on you," Wallace said.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com