ASSOCIATED PRESS Matt Lojeski of Hawaii dunked over Mark Dawson of Long Beach State for two of his 22 points last night in the 'Bows' road win.

Rainbows battle back to beat Long Beach

Luettgerodt's career night spurs Hawaii to its second road win

LONG BEACH, Calif.. » The Hawaii basketball team's flight from Salt Lake City landed at Los Angeles International Airport early Thursday afternoon, giving the Rainbow Warriors nearly two full days to prepare for last night's game at Long Beach State.

Recovering splendidly from 12-point (with 8 minutes to go in the first half) and nine-point (with 11 1/2 minutes to go in the game) deficits, the Rainbows outscored the hosts by 24 points down the stretch to pull away for a 93-78 victory in front of 2,385.

Hawaii, while improving to 15-12 with only its second victory (in 10 tries) on an opponent's home court, got double-figure scoring from five players, led by reserve Riley Luettgerodt, who scored a game-high 23 points with six rebounds and a game-high eight assists in 33 minutes.

Luettgerodt was perfect on 10 free-throw attempts, as was Matt Gibson. Their teammates weren't bad either on a night when Hawaii knocked in 31 of 33.

And Wallace moved Luettgerodt into the starting lineup for the second half, when he didn't use his bench once.

Luettgerodt's extensive playing time was the result in Wallace trying to find a way to match up with the smaller but obviously quicker Big West Conference-leading 49ers.

"P.J. (Owsley, the team's starting power forward) was obviously too slow to guard (Sterling) Byrd (who hit three shots behind the arc as the hosts burst out to a 24-12 advantage)," Wallace said.

"So we moved (Bobby) Nash to the '4' (power forward) and Riley to the '3' (small forward) to help match up on their quickness. And we did a better job of contesting their shots."

The move helped, and at both ends of the floor.

Once Hawaii (which committed 12 turnovers in the first 12 minutes) started taking a bit better care of the basketball, the Rainbows started getting better shots, both in transition and in half-court sets.

The visitors used three 3s by Nash to move up by five points late in the first half, but Long Beach regained the lead on a steal and layup by Aaron Nixon (team-high 17 points) with 48 seconds to go.

Two Luettgerodt free throws tied the score 11 seconds later for the final points of the first 20 minutes.

A 27-footer by Nixon -- launched from the Big West Conference logo on the floor -- seemingly gave the 49ers a little breathing room, courtesy of a 62-53 advantage with 11:53 to go.

But it didn't take long for the visitors to regain control from Long Beach (18-7), which came into the contest with a five-game winning streak and had lost just twice in its previous 18 games.

The Rainbows regained the lead, at 64-63, on two free throws by Matt Lojeski (22 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals) with 8:51 to play and never trailed again.

The 49ers, unable to penetrate against Hawaii's position-oriented man-to-man and unable to get many open jump shots against the close-out pressure of the defenders, didn't get another field goal after Nixon's 3 until Byrd converted a fast-break layup with 3:23 to go.

Down the stretch it was a flurry of layups out of Hawaii's flex offense and a parade to the free-throw line that enabled the 'Bows to pull away in comfortable fashion.

"We didn't think they wanted to play defense against our flex and in the second half that's pretty much all we ran," Luettgerodt said. "We thought we were going to have to grind it out against them and that's what we did."

Having a few practice sessions to prepare for the 49ers' wide-open offensive attack that emphasizes dribble penetration and 3-point shooting after penetration more than it does the screening and movement found in more traditional half-court attacks.

"I appreciate that style of play," Wallace said. "I visited with Jerry Tarkanian, a good friend of mine, in Fresno and talked to him about it and he's a fan of it. That style of play has turned their (Long Beach's) program around and got them in a position to win the Big West."

That may be the case, as the 49ers are favored to earn the program's first trip to the NCAA Tournament in 12 years.

But it wasn't enough to overcome a team that had two days to prep for it, in large part because Hawaii put a season-high 93 points on the board itself.

It was also enough for Hawaii's coach to forget about a less-than-overwhelming start for his club.

Well, not quite.

"That was an ugly first 5 minutes," Wallace said. "That was as bad a start as I can remember in recent times."

Of course, there was a lot of beauty for Wallace to behold the rest of the way, though.