Monday, November 15, 1999
Rainbows
trounce all-stars
Hawaii wins its second
By Pat Bigold
exhibition, rolling to a
fast-paced 92-84 victory
Star-BulletinThe Hawaii men's basketball team went on another crowd-pleasing offensive rampage in winning its second straight exhibition game last night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The Rainbows had five men in double figures again, defeating the California Midwest All-Stars, 92-84, before 3,375 fans.
It was Hawaii's last tuneup before starting the nonconference collegiate season at home Friday night against Tennessee-Martin in the Pepsi One/NEXTEL Challenge.
The Rainbows' ability to execute the break and put the ball in the basket during the two exhibition games has been almost enough to make everyone forget that the team has committed 24 turnovers in each game.
"Most impressive was our ability to move the ball down the floor and create situations out of the offense," head coach Riley Wallace said.
"A year ago, we had to depend so much just on the offense. But now these guys can do some things off of it. We have a lot more weapons."
If the wins over the Northwest All-Stars (89-67) and the California Midwest All-Stars forecast anything, Hawaii will be scoring a lot more this season.
During the 1998-99 season, the Rainbows averaged 63.8 points per game, compared with 90.0 in the past two games.
"They're going to be a very fun team for this crowd to watch," said California Midwest All-Stars coach Price Johnson, who is a workout coach for the Milwaukee Bucks.Johnson said he was more impressed with Hawaii than with USC, which beat his team Saturday night in Los Angeles. Hawaii travels to play USC on Dec. 8.
He said the Rainbows remind him of North Carolina State, a team that beat his all-stars on Nov. 3.
Like the Northwest All-Stars, the California Midwest All-Stars got off a plane four hours before game time.
But this was a higher caliber touring team, composed of former Division I players. The all-stars had played top programs such as North Carolina State, Michigan State, DePaul, Northwestern, Washington and USC this month before visiting Hawaii. Their lone win was against Washington on Thursday.
"We had to come out and prove to our fans that we were better than them (the all-stars)," said team captain and senior center Marquette Alexander.
Alexander led the Hawaii attack with 20 points. Forward Troy Ostler scored 16, point guard Johnny White 15, shooting guard Predrag Savovic 13 and forward Bernard McIntosh 10.
"This team is really a team," said Savovic, who had a game-high eight assists.
Nerijus Puida, making his exhibition game debut, pleased Wallace with his 27-minute stint. Puida, who suffered multiple abrasions in a bicycle accident a week and a half ago, scored six points, had five assists, two steals and a surprising eight rebounds.
Wallace said he wanted to see how much Puida could do in his first game. Therefore, starting small forward Lane O'Connor (17 points last week) played only 10 minutes.
"They (the all-stars) tried everything," said Savovic. "They tried man and couldn't handle us. They tried zone and we broke it."
Johnson said he used a variety of defenses.
"We used a 2-3 zone, man-to-man, man trap and 1-2-2 shadow up and down the court to try to slow things down. We got runs but when we got close enough, we didn't finish."
Hawaii shot out to an 8-0 advantage before before the all-stars came back to take a 12-10 lead. But White tied it with a jumper and Alexander put the Rainbows ahead to stay with a hook.
The closest the all-stars got after that was 41-38with 21 seconds left in the half.
White hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer to make it 44-38.
Rebounding stats also impressed Wallace last night.
Against the Northwest All-Stars, Ostler led the team with 15 rebounds while McIntosh had eight.
But against the California Midwest All-Stars, McIntosh led with nine rebounds and three other players (Ostler, Alexander, and Puida) had eight apiece.
Hawaii out-rebounded the all-stars, 47-36.
And whereas Hawaii (which out-rebounded the Northwest All-Stars, 49-37) could only win the battle on the defensive glass last week, the team won the battle at both ends last night. The Rainbows took the offensive side, 17-15, and the defensive side, 30-21.
But Wallace said there's still room for improvement.
"We have to work better on our rebounding," he said. "We didn't box out. We just tried to out-athlete them."
As for the 48 turnovers in two games, Wallace said the problem is with identifying what the other team is doing on defense.
"We didn't identify fast enough, so we had turnovers," he said. "If they're in the full-court press, then we have to see it and get into our full-court press offense. In the half-court when they trapped us, we didn't get into the stack at all. We have to identify the sets and get into them quick, and execute out of them."
Alexander and Savovic played with postseason fervor in the first half. Alexander went over the head of all-star Sean Pryor at the baseline while trying to catch up to him on a drive. He landed on his back.
"I'm just working for my team, trying to win," he said.
Savovic took some hard charges and hurtled into an all-star in midair while trying to stop his layup.
"I feel strong enough to do those things, and if they let me do it -- hell -- I'll do it," said Savovic.
Wallace had some words for McIntosh who just missed a double-double, made a block and ignited the crowd with a pair of power slams off the break.
"McIntosh plays hard, he plays hard," said Wallace. "He turned it over a few times (four) because he didn't stick to his fundamentals. But he's got good shoulders, he goes up and he likes to rebound and that's good."
McIntosh said he finally felt like himself.
"I played today like I played in junior college," said McIntosh. "I got out, ran. I'm used to running up and down the court. It felt high intensity."
Brooklyn McLinn led six all-stars with 17 points.
California All-Stars Hawaii 92, California All-Stars 84
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp McLinn 3 11 8 11 30 2 4 17 Anderson 4 12 3 4 33 3 2 13 Pryor 0 4 4 6 26 3 1 4 T.Gray 3 8 3 4 25 10 1 10 Gill 5 14 5 6 33 11 3 15 Stone 0 3 0 0 13 0 0 0 Grayson 5 7 3 2 16 3 2 13 G.Gray 4 6 4 3 17 3 0 12 Harmsen 0 1 0 4 7 0 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Totals 24 66 30 38 200 36 13 84Rainbows
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Savovic 5 11 3 5 32 3 8 13 White 5 12 4 4 25 2 3 15 Ostler 7 9 2 3 20 8 1 16 O’Connor 0 1 0 0 10 1 0 0 Alexander 9 13 2 3 27 8 2 20 McIntyre 0 0 1 2 4 0 1 1 McIntosh 4 6 2 6 22 9 0 10 Takaki 0 0 1 2 0+ 0 0 1 Puida 3 7 0 2 27 8 5 6 English 1 2 0 0 14 0 2 3 Hall 0 0 0 0 0+ 0 1 0 Robinson 2 4 1 1 10 3 1 5 Fields 1 3 0 0 9 2 0 2 Team 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 Totals 37 68 16 28 200 47 24 923-point goals--CAS (6-22): McLinn 3-6, Anderson 2-8, T. Gray 1-2, Gill 0-1, Pryor 0-2, Stone 0-3; UH (2-8): English 1-1, White 1-1, O'Connor 0-1, Savovic 0-4. Personal fouls--CAS 25, UH 26. Fouled out--Grayson. Steals--CAS 16 (Gill 3, McLinn 3), UH 5 (Puida 2, Savovic 2). Blocked shots--CAS 1 (Gill), UH 2 (McIntosh 1, Ostler 1). Turnovers--CAS 15, UH 24. Officials--Larry Yamashita, Pat Tanibe, Donovan Lewis.
