DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Lance Takaki, Hawaii's shortest player at 5-foot-4, jumped over Carl English for a dunk after last night's 77-63 win over UTEP. He and fellow seniors Ryne Holliday and Mark Campbell took their final shots after the game.
Seniors say goodbye For a while, it looked like UTEP might deviate from the script on Senior Night for the Hawaii basketball team.
with a victory
The Rainbows gain momentum
Rainbows don't blow Senior Night
heading into the WAC tourney
with a Senior Night winBy Jason Kaneshiro
jkaneshiro@starbulletin.comBut in the end, the Rainbows rolled to a 77-63 victory over the Miners last night at the Stan Sheriff Center, providing a stirring send-off for the team's three seniors and building a bit of momentum heading into this week's Western Athletic Conference tournament.
A crowd of 8,959 saw the Rainbows end the regular season at 17-10 and 9-9 in the WAC. UTEP goes into Tuesday's tournament opener at 5-23 and 3-15 in the WAC.
Hawaii, the two-time defending WAC tournament champion, will be the fifth seed for the tournament and will face Rice in the quarterfinals on Thursday.
UH seniors Mark Campbell, Ryne Holliday and Lance Takaki were honored after the game with the annual Senior Night ceremony.
Campbell, the WAC's leading assist man, finished with four points and tied his career high with 11 assists.
"That was cool, that's what I love doing, passing the ball," Campbell said. "I love watching guys like (Michael) Kuebler and Carl (English) shooting shots, I get joy out of that and I love it. If could average 15 assists and never score a point I would be the happiest guy."
Holliday and Takaki, four-year reserves for the Rainbows, completed their careers on the court. Takaki ended his run by taking a charge on a drive by UTEP's Giovanni St. Amant with two seconds left. Holliday's half-court shot at the buzzer rimmed out.
"It was important that we won the game for them and got them on the floor so they could play together and finish off Senior Night with a blast," said junior Phil Martin, who played four years with Takaki and Holliday, including a redshirt season.
Said UH coach Riley Wallace: "All senior classes are special, but this group was particularly special. Campbell's led us to 44 wins so far and Taco and Ryno never had a bad day at practice."
Kuebler, English and Martin provided much of the scoring for the Rainbows. Kuebler scored a game-high 26, while English finished with 16 and Martin 13. Nkeruwem Akpan chipped in with 10 points and nine rebounds.
DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM
Hawaii senior Lance Takaki, buried in leis, and coach Riley Wallace celebrated during Senior Night festivities after last night's win over UTEP.
It appeared UTEP might spoil the evening for the Rainbows when it whittled a 16-point deficit to three midway through the second half. With little to play for other than pride, the Miners put forth a spirited effort led by freshman John Tofi's 20 points. St. Amant added 14 and Justino Victoriano scored 10.
"No question we got into Senior Night early," Wallace said. "The players got into wanting to celebrate early and that scared me because we let them get back in it."
Hawaii opened up a controlling lead in the first half as English and Kuebler combined to score 27 of UH's first 29 points.
The Rainbows controlled the game from the opening tip and opened a 26-11 lead on Kuebler's 3-pointer from the left corner to give him 14 points in the first 11 minutes of the game.
English had 13 points in the half, and hit three of seven shots beyond the 3-point line.
UH guard Jason Carter left the game at the 10:37 mark of the half and was diagnosed with a torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee. The junior's status is listed as day-to-day.
The Rainbows went cold from the field late in the first half and UTEP capitalized by going on a 12-2 run to cut the UH lead to six at 35-29 with 56 seconds left in the half. Miners guard Omar Duran, who stands 5-foot-8, highlighted the run with back-to-back 3-pointers, and UTEP went into halftime trailing 37-29.
The Miners continued to inch closer early in the second half, cutting the UH lead to four on Duran's third trey of the game with 13:50 left.
Hawaii's lead shrunk to three at 53-50 with 8:49 left on a putback by Tofi.
"It was a big kick in the butt," Martin said. "We all came together, it was a special night, so we had to hold it down. We had to finish off big tonight."
But Akpan scored the next five points and fed Martin for a jumper to spark an 18-5 UH run to give the Rainbows control again with a 71-55 advantage with 4:19 left and the Miners didn't threaten again.
The Miners didn't threaten again and the Rainbows completed their home schedule with a 15-1 mark at the Sheriff Center.
"It was very important to get the last two games, and you can't ask for much more to finish the home season out," Kuebler said.
WAC Standings
WAC Games Overall W L Pct. W L Fresno St. 13 5 .722 20 8 Tulsa 12 6 .667 19 9 Rice 11 7 .611 19 9 Nevada 11 7 .611 16 12 SMU 11 7 .611 16 12 HAWAII 9 9 .500 17 10 Louisiana Tech 9 9 .500 12 14 Boise St. 7 11 .389 13 15 San Jose St. 4 14 .222 7 20 UTEP 3 15 .167 5 23 YESTERDAY
Boise St. 65, San Jose St. 47
Tulsa 79, Nevada 73
Rice 92, Fresno St. 71
SMU 84, Louisiana Tech 61
HAWAII 77, UTEP 63
MINERS (5-23, 3-15 wac)
Hawaii 77, UTEP 63
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp St. Amant 5 12 3 4 35 2 1 14 Craig 1 3 0 0 35 4 2 3 Duran 3 13 0 0 34 2 4 9 Tofi 8 11 4 6 25 6 1 20 Victoriano 5 8 0 0 28 4 1 10 Gehrke 0 1 1 2 12 2 2 1 Devance 0 3 2 2 8 1 0 2 Mattear 1 2 0 0 17 7 0 2 Anthis 1 2 0 0 6 2 0 2 Team 0 0 0 0 0 5 0 0 Totals 24 55 10 14 200 35 11 63 WARRIORS (17-10, 9-9 wac)
fg fga ft fta min reb a tp Martin 6 8 1 1 31 4 0 13 Campbell 1 7 2 2 37 3 11 4 English 6 17 1 4 38 6 1 16 Kuebler 9 14 5 5 32 4 3 26 Akpan 2 6 6 12 36 9 3 10 Takaki 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 Alama-Francis 0 1 0 0 0+ 0 0 0 Zivanovic 1 2 0 2 9 1 0 2 Carter 1 1 0 0 5 0 2 2 Peciukas 1 3 2 2 9 4 0 4 Holliday 0 1 0 0 2 0 0 0 Pickart 0 0 0 0 0+ 0 0 0 Team 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 Totals 27 60 17 28 200 32 20 77 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 37, UTEP 29.
3-point goals--UTEP 5-17 (Duran 3-11, St. Amant 1-2, Craig 1-2, Gehrke 0-1, Devance 0-1); Hawaii 6-18 (Kuebler 3-6, English 3-10, Campbell 0-1, Holliday 0-1).
Personal fouls--UTEP 23, Hawaii 14.
Technical fouls--none.
Steals-- UTEP 4 (Duran 3, Victoriano); Hawaii 10 (Akpan 3, Carter 2, English 2, Martin, Campbell, Peciukas).
Blocked shots-- UTEP 0; Hawaii 1 (Akpan).
Turnovers-- UTEP 19 (St. Amant 4, Victoriano 4, Duran 3, Tofi 3, Gehrke 2, Craig, Mattear, TEAM); Hawaii 9 (Campbell 3, Martin 2, English 2, Kuebler, TEAM).
Officials-- Mike Littlewood, Mike Reed, Thomas Yoshida.
A--9,562.
They sat patiently in their sideline chairs, just as they had for 119 other games since their careers started on Oct. 19, 1999.
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Rainbows don’t
blow Senior NightBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.comHawaii's senior walk-ons, Lance Takaki and Ryne Holliday, knew they would get their court time last night, but -- hopefully -- it would be before it was time for their respective post-game Senior Night dunks.
UTEP just wouldn't cooperate.
What began as a blowout --with the Rainbows leading by as many 16 in the first half -- nearly turned into UH blowing the game. A late surge gave Hawaii a 77-63 victory, earning the Rainbows the No. 5 seed in this week's Western Athletic Conference tournament in Tulsa, Okla.
Last night's outcome wasn't decided until there were eight minutes left, keeping the turnstile crowd of 8,959 on the edge of their seats until then. It also kept Takaki and Holliday firmly planted in theirs, except when it was time to stand and cheer Carl English's alley-oop jam, Jason Carter's no-look bullet assist to Michael Kuebler, or UTEP guard Giovanni St. Amant stepping out of bounds when dribbling down the sidelines.
Between the two of them, the 5-foot-4 Takaki and 6-1 Holliday had played not even one entire game. They had 39 minutes and 24 points combined, each appearing in 33 previous games over the past four years.
The fans began chanting, "We want Lance" with 2:59 to go and the Rainbows beginning to pull away at 71-55. As stubborn as the Miners were, so was Hawaii coach Riley Wallace.
It wasn't until there was 1:55 left and the Warriors comfortably ahead at 77-58 that Holliday entered the game. Takaki moved next to associate head coach Bob Nash and began to take off his warm-up pants, finally getting waved in with 62 seconds to go.
The Rainbows tried to get the seniors into the scoring column. A pass intended for Takaki was picked off, but the Mid-Pacific product was cheered loudly when taking a charge in the waning seconds.
Holliday nearly made it, but his half-court shot at the buzzer bounced off the rim.
"I wished it had gone in," said Holliday of what would have been his first career 3-pointer.
It didn't matter because the fun was just beginning for the two co-captains of the scout team known as "The Lizards."
Holliday said he had taken about a week to plan his Senior Shot, a run from the left side of the basket ending with a windmill jam.
Takaki said he had been planning his for years. With the rim lowered to about 7 feet, Takaki jumped over a kneeling English for his fan-pleasing dunk.
Hawaii's third senior, 6-4 guard Mark Campbell, played all but three minutes of last night's contest. After tying his career-high with 11 assists, an emotional Campbell missed his first two attempts before finally getting a putback to go down.
The trio, buried under a pile of leis, then joined their teammates for an autograph session. Their final home season was over, but the run for an unprecedented third-straight WAC tournament title and NCAA Tournament berth was just beginning.
UH Athletics
