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Saturday, November 18, 2000
UH win not This was not the California so-called All-Stars. This was not the Division II Hilo Vulcans.
in the Cards
Louisville deals the
Rainbows a 86-71
season-opening lossRealAudio: Live 'Net broadcast Click Here
By Dave Reardon
Star-BulletinThe warmups were over.
This was Louisville -- college basketball royalty -- with whom Hawaii opened its season last night.
And if the Cardinals are going to have the down year everyone says they will, well, maybe their misery starts next week at the Maui Classic.
Last night, they got the kind of results Denny Crum's teams of lore produced.
Louisville knocked off Hawaii, 86-71, as the Cardinals' Marques Maybin turned the Stan Sheriff Center into a Not-OK Corral for the Rainbows. He sharp-shot them down with 25 points, most from long range.
A crowd of 5,282 watched Louisville make 9-of-18 3-pointers, while Hawaii succeeded on only 3-of-15.
"I think that was the difference in the game," Rainbows' coach Riley Wallace said. "We've just got to get better defensively (and) we've got to get key guys shooting well."
Post Troy Ostler led Hawaii with 22 points and 13 rebounds, but probably had to attempt too much heavy lifting by himself -- Wallace held center Haim Shimonovic out of the game, pending NCAA eligibility clarification.
Even if the 6-foot-10 freshman did play, it's questionable if he could have made a difference in this one; Maybin looked unstoppable.
UH tried to slow him down with Predrag Savovic, Nerijus Puida and Mike McIntyre.
McIntyre was the only one with any success, but that was negated by his own 0-for-5 long-distance misfiring.
Savovic provided his typical energy and points on offense, dropping in 20 points.
But don't let that "5" in the steals column fool you -- on this night, Savovic was lost defensively. At least, that's what his coach said.
"We couldn't hide Savo," Wallace said.
It was so bad that Savovic was held out of an eight-minute stretch in the second half as the Rainbows tried to claw back from a double-digit deficit.Hawaii got it down to 10 twice, first when Bosko Radovic hit a 3-pointer at 9:54, and again when Savovic made a free throw at 5:19.
But he missed the second, and Louisville converted 8 of its next 9 throws to close the issue.
At that point, it was hard to believe Hawaii had led this game, 28-21, nearly 10 minutes into it, as the Rainbows surprised the Cardinals with sporty transition work.
But Hawaii got overconfident and began to run out of control, Wallace said.
"That's where we started shooting (quickly), that's where we thought we were going to be red-hot and blow them out," he said.
Louisville made a 23-2 run in which UH shot 1-for-12 from the field and 0-for-3 from the line.
"We took a lot of bad quick shots. They came down, penetrated and kicked it out," Wallace said. "We stopped the penetration, but didn't get to the shooter."
And the shooter was often Maybin, who canned 3-of-4 treys in the first half.
Even without Shimonovic, Hawaii outrebounded Louisville, 41-30. That didn't mean much to Savovic.
"I don't see a lot of positives," he said.
Louisville 86, Hawaii 71
Cardinals (1-0)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Myles 5 6 0 0 25 5 3 10 Turner 2 4 0 0 17 3 2 4 Maybin 9 17 2 2 33 2 3 25 Gaines 3 9 3 4 26 3 5 11 Whitehead 6 10 1 2 31 3 2 13 Brooks 4 5 2 5 29 4 1 12 Wilkinson 1 2 0 0 11 2 1 2 Northern 0 3 0 0 5 2 0 0 N’Sima 1 2 7 8 23 5 1 9 Team 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Totals 31 58 15 21 200 30 18 86 Rainbows (0-1)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Savovic 7 14 4 6 30 4 2 20 Terrell 0 3 4 4 12 5 1 4 Burneika 0 1 0 0 11 1 0 0 Puida 5 8 0 1 36 2 6 10 Ostler 9 20 4 9 36 13 2 22 Martin 1 2 0 0 10 0 0 2 McIntyre 2 8 0 0 29 5 3 4 Radovic 3 6 2 2 21 3 1 9 Hilton 0 2 0 0 13 0 2 0 English 0 0 0 0 2 1 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 7 0 0 Totals 27 64 14 22 200 41 17 71 Key--fg: field goals; fga: field goals attempted; ft: free throws; fta: free throws attempted; min: minutes; reb: rebounds; a: assists; tp: total points.
Halftime-Louisville 47, Hawaii 34.
3-point goals--UL 9-18 (Maybin 5-8, Gaines 2-3, Brooks 2-3, Wilkinson 0-1, Northern 0-3); UH 3-15 (Savovic 2-4, Radovic 1-3, Terrell 0-1, Burneika 0-1, Ostler 0-1, McIntyre 0-5). Personal fouls--UL 22, UH 23. Fouled out--Hilton. Technical fouls-None. Steals--UL 8 (Gaines 3, Maybin 2, Myles, Turner, Whitehead), UH 6 (Savovic 5, McIntyre). Blocked shots--UL 5 (N'Sima 2, Maybin, Gaines, Whitehead), UH 1 (Ostler). Turnovers--UL 11 (Maybin 3, Whitehead 2, Wilkinson 2, Turner, Gaines, Brooks, Northern), UH 17 (Terrell 5, Ostler 3, Radovic 3, Puida 2, Savovic, Martin, Hilton, McIntyre). Officials--Hightower, Thornley, Petersen. A-6,776 (tickets distributed), 5,282 (turnstile).
UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii