Sunday, February 10, 2002
[UH BASKETBALL]
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RUSTON, La. >> What was supposed to be smooth sailing into the Top 25 rankings turned into a swamping by Louisiana Tech yesterday at the Thomas Assembly Center. UH’s Top 25 hopes hit
a road bumpFrom staff and wire reports
The Bulldogs turned the Hawaii basketball team into road kill, using a 21-5 spurt during the second half, to topple the Rainbows 61-57. Hawaii (20-4, 11-2) slid into a first-place tie with Tulsa (20-4, 11-2), which defeated Texas-El Paso 88-76 last night.
LaTech, winning its sixth straight WAC game, improved to 15-7, 9-3 in the conference and is just 112 games out of first place.
"We're very disappointed," said Hawaii sophomore guard Carl English, who finished with 18 points. "We were quick-firing instead of running our offense. We weren't ourselves.
"I think we learned that we can't just show up and win a game. We have to give it 100 percent every game. We need to build on our leads and put teams away."
Only English and senior guard Predrag Savovic (22) were in double figures for the Rainbows, who saw their streaks of five straight wins and three consecutive road victories end. LaTech had three players in double figures, led by junior forward Zach Johnson, who came off the bench for 15 points and 10 rebounds.
Hawaii's usually dependable outside shooting went south -- literally -- and it was not a good thing. The Rainbows hit just 7 of 22 3-point attempts, 3 of 14 in the second half as they saw a 10-point lead evaporate with 14:30 left in the game.
"Our game is the '3' and we live and die by it," added Hawaii coach Riley Wallace. "Louisiana Tech tightened up their defense and our guys weren't patient in the offense, didn't want to give up the ball. They all wanted to win so badly that they said, 'I'll do it' instead of 'We'll do it.'"
That showed up in the one statistic the Rainbows pride themselves on: assists. Hawaii, which has assists on 70 percent of its baskets, had just 7 assists on 21 field goals last night for a season-low 33 percent.
The Rainbows were on cruise control in opening the second half, with English's jumper giving them a 40-30 cushion. But Hawaii failed to score over the next five minutes while also failing to get back on defense and block out LaTech under the boards.
The Bulldogs rallied with an 11-0 run to take a 41-40 lead with 11:30 left. Antonio Meeking scored three consecutive baskets on putbacks in a 51-second span, Michael Wilder hit a layup and Zach Johnson converted a three-point play to put LaTech ahead for the first time since the opening minutes.
Hawaii pulled to a 45-45 tie as Savovic hit the last of his three 3-pointers with 7:05 remaining. Darrian Brown's baseline jumper keyed a 6-0 run that put LaTech ahead for good and the Bulldogs sank 10 of 12 free throws in the final 2:32 to hold off the Rainbows.
The four-point difference in the final score came down to free throws: LaTech was 18 of 24 from the line, Hawaii 8 of 11. Henderson finished with a team-high 20 points, 10 of those on free throws.
Both teams made 21 field goals, with the Rainbows hitting seven 3-pointers to the Bulldogs' one. LaTech also outrebounded Hawaii 40-31, matching its WAC-best rebounding margin.
Savovic had 10 of his game-high 22 points in the first half to help Hawaii to a 29-24 lead at intermission. The margin could have been larger, but the Rainbows had a hard time containing Bulldog senior guard Gerrod Henderson.
Henderson scored his team's final nine points of the half, including three quick baskets in the final 1:50, to pull LaTech to within 27-24. English's two free throws with 2.9 seconds to go accounted for the Rainbows' five-point margin.
"We didn't manage the clock well in the second half, and also at the end of the first half," said Wallace. "We probably should have been up more than five at half, but we tried to do it with fall-away 3s instead of being in the offense.
"But give Louisiana Tech credit. They beat us. Now we head home, look at what we did wrong and fix it."
The Rainbows finish their regular-season home schedule by hosting San Jose State on Saturday, then Tulsa on Feb. 21 and Rice on Feb. 23; Hawaii finishes on the road at Nevada and Fresno State before heading to Tulsa for the WAC Tournament.
"This is was a winnable ballgame," said Wallace. "We've played a lot of teams better than Louisiana Tech and beat them. All the things we did wrong are fixable.
"There are no easy games left and I think we've got to have 24 or 25 wins for us to be considered for an at-large (NCAA) spot. The (selection) committee has overlooked us before."
WAC
Tulsa 88, UTEP 76: At El Paso, Texas, Kevin Johnson paced a balanced scoring attack with 20 points to lead the Golden Hurricane (20-4, 11-2) over the Miners (9-16, 3-10).UTEP kept it close as Tulsa led 61-59 with 12:08 left. But Tulsa then went on a 21-7 run to take an 82-66 lead with 5:43 left. UTEP didn't get any closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
Southern Methodist 84, San Jose St. 55: At Dallas, Damon Hancock scored 25 points and Quinton Ross added 22 points and 10 rebounds as the Mustangs (12-10, 7-5) beat the cold-shooting Spartans (8-17, 3-10).
Boise St. 78, Rice 62: At Boise, Idaho, Abe Jackson scored 26 points and Bryan Defares added 17 points, a career-high 11 rebounds and five assists as the Broncos (9-14, 3-10) ended a seven-game losing streak with a win over the Owls (9-14, 4-9).
WAC STANDINGS
WAC games Overall W L PCT GB W L Hawaii 11 2 .846 -- 20 4 Tulsa 11 2 .846 -- 20 4 La. Tech 9 3 .750 112 15 7 SMU 7 5 .583 312 12 10 Nevada 6 6 .500 412 13 9 Fresno St. 6 6 .500 412 14 10 Rice 4 9 .308 7 9 14 UTEP 3 10 .231 8 9 16 San Jose St. 3 10 .231 8 8 17 Boise St. 3 10 .231 8 9 14 Yesterday
Louisiana Tech 61, Hawaii 57
SMU 84, San Jose St. 55
Tulsa 88, UTEP 76
Boise St. 78, Rice 62
Today (HST)
Oklahoma St. at Fresno St., 10:30 a.m.
Louisiana Tech 61, Hawaii 57
Rainbows (20-4, 11-2)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Martin 2 5 0 0 23 5 0 4 Shimonovich 3 8 1 4 33 6 0 7 Savovic 7 18 5 5 31 5 0 22 Campbell 0 0 0 0 31 3 4 0 English 7 15 2 2 36 6 2 18 McIntyre 1 4 0 0 18 1 0 3 Takaki 0 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 Burneika 1 5 0 0 18 1 1 3 Akpan 0 1 0 0 5 1 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 3 0 0 Totals 21 56 8 11 200 31 7 57 Bulldogs (15-7, 9-3)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Cole 2 7 4 4 25 5 0 9 Brown 1 4 3 4 37 6 0 5 Meeking 5 9 0 0 20 6 0 10 Felton 0 4 0 0 30 0 2 0 Henderson 5 14 10 13 39 4 4 20 Wilder 1 5 0 2 27 3 5 2 Johnson 7 8 1 1 22 10 1 15 Team 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 Totals 21 51 18 24 200 40 12 61 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-Hawaii 29, La. Tech 24.
3-point goals--Hawaii 7-22 (Savovic 3-9, English 2-6, Burneika 1-3, McIntyre 1-3, Shimonovich 0-1); La. Tech 1-9 (Cole 1-4, Wilder 0-2, Henderson 0-1, Felton 0-1, Brown 0-1). Personal fouls--Hawaii 19, La. Tech 16. Technical fouls--none. Steals--Hawaii 6 (Campbell 2, English 2, Martin, Shimonovich); La. Tech 5 (Felton 2, Meeking, Wilder, Johnson). Blocked shots--Hawaii 0; La. Tech 2 (Brown 2). Turnovers--Hawaii 10 (Campbell 3, English 3, Shimonovich 2, Martin, Savovic); La. Tech 10 (Henderson 3, Wilder 2, Cole 2, Felton 2, Brown). Officials--Jacobs, Allred, Ramos. A--3,643.
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