TULSA >> The Hawaii women's basketball team had another chance to win a close Western Athletic Conference game on the road, but failed to capitalize on chances down the stretch. Wahine fall to
Golden Hurricane in
another close road lossFrom staff and wire reports
Falling behind by 16 points early in the second half, the Rainbow Wahine battled back to tie the game at 37 on a layup by April Atuaia with a little over five minutes to play.
Hawaii's defense limited the Tulsa Golden Hurricane to eight points the rest of the way, but UH managed only five points on offense, including missing on the front end of two crucial one-and-one situations.
Tulsa (12-8, 7-2) benefited from the late lapses and prevented UH (11-7, 5-4) from pulling into a second-place tie with the Golden Hurricane with the 45-42 victory. It was a win that wasn't sealed until a 3-point attempt by Michelle Gabriel with a tick on the clock was off the mark.
The Golden Hurricane were awarded possession on a held-ball call with 30 seconds left when Allison Curtin tied up UH's Kim Willoughby after the UH sophomore rebounded a missed Tulsa field goal attempt. The referee's decision did not please the UH coaches.
"Kim was fouled. It should have been our ball with 30 seconds to go and down by one," said UH coach Vince Goo.
Needing to regain possession, Hawaii was forced to foul the Golden Hurricane four consecutive times just to get Tulsa into the bonus situation. That ate up precious seconds on the clock. By the time Kara Pongonis went to the free throw line, just 14.2 seconds remained. After she sank both free throws and UH got the ball to midcourt for a time out, 11.2 seconds were left.
"We wanted to reverse the floor with the dribble to get a good look, but they played good pressure defense and we weren't able to reverse the floor," said Goo.
The Wahine did not start well offensively, missing their first 12 field goal attempts. However, a stingy defense kept the Wahine even as the teams were tied five times, the last coming at 13 with 7:44 left before intermission.
At this juncture, Curtain nailed consecutive 3-pointers and hit three jump shots to account for 12 of her 19 first-half points as Tulsa outscored Hawaii 17-4 over the final seven minutes of the opening half.
"We did execute early, got good shots but couldn't get them to go down. We did not take a bad shot," said Goo. "Then, they got their lead with some transition baskets on fast breaks.
"At the half I told our players the defense was doing exactly what we wanted it to except for the transition at the end of the half. We needed to keep playing defense. Curtain had 19 points in the first half, six in the second. We held them to 16 percent (5 for 31) from the field in the second half and held them to 15 points."
Goo went with a taller front line of Willoughby, Natasja Allen and Christen Roper for a better scoring inside, tougher rebounding and defense in the second half. He also employed a different version of the matchup zone.
It still wasn't enough to keep the Wahine winless on the road this season.
Note: Roper blocked three shots and is now second on the all-time WAC list with 254, 14 behind BYU's Debbie Diamond.
WAC standings
WAC games Overall W L Pct. W L Louisiana Tech 9 0 1.000 16 2 Tulsa 7 2 .636 12 8 Hawaii 5 4 .556 11 7 SMU 5 4 .556 11 8 Rice 5 4 .556 8 10 Fresno St. 4 5 .444 10 9 UTEP 4 5 .444 9 10 San Jose St. 4 5 .444 8 10 Boise St. 2 7 .222 5 14 Nevada 0 9 .000 7 12 Yesterday
Tulsa 45, Hawaii 42
Louisiana Tech 68, UTEP 53
Boise St. 78, SMU 75
Fresno St. 71, Nevada 48
Rice 61, San Jose St. 58
Tulsa 45, Hawaii 42
GOLDEN HURRICANE (12-8, 7-2 wac)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Carney 1 10 8 8 30 11 0 9 Shriver 3 8 0 0 35 8 2 6 Pongonis 1 7 2 2 25 4 1 5 Brewer 0 5 0 0 18 5 2 0 Curtin 10 23 2 2 40 9 4 25 Upshaw 1 3 0 0 17 2 1 2 Elliott 0 2 0 0 15 1 1 0 Chiconas 0 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 Moody 2 5 0 0 6 1 0 5 Wagoner 0 0 0 0 4 1 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 6 0 0 Totals 18 63 4 4 200 48 11 45 RAINBOW WAHINE (11-7, 5-4 wac)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Abele 1 8 0 0 31 5 4 2 Allen 5 11 2 2 31 5 1 12 Roper 4 15 1 2 29 10 0 9 Gabriel 0 4 0 1 29 1 4 0 Atuaia 4 10 4 5 32 4 1 13 Willoughby 2 7 2 2 26 8 0 6 Macfarlane 0 2 0 0 12 0 1 0 Sanders 0 1 0 0 10 0 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 9 0 0 Totals 16 58 9 12 200 42 11 42 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 -- Tulsa 30, Hawaii 17
3-point goals -- Tulsa5-26(Curtin 3-8, Moody 1-3, Pongonis 1-7, Elliott 0-1, Brewer 0-3, Carney 0-4), Hawaii 1-11 (Atuaia 1-2, Macfarlane 0-2, Gabriel 0-3, Abele 0-4). Personal fouls -- Tulsa 14, Hawaii 12. Steals -- Tulsa 4 (Carney 3, Upshaw), Hawaii 5 (Gabriel 4, Abele). Blocked shots -- Tulsa 9 (Carney 3, Shriver 3, Wagoner 2, Moody, Curtin), Hawaii 6 (Roper 3, Abele 2, Willoughby). Turnovers -- Tulsa 10, Hawaii 7. Officials -- Eric Larson, Thomas Brow, Park Van Nest. A -- 2,521.
