Warriors escape

A comfortable lead turns tenuous before UH pulls it out to beat visiting San Francisco

Though they had just earned a spot in the semifinals of the Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic, the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors were hardly in the mood for celebrating following their 89-85 win over San Francisco last night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

HAWAII - 89 USF - 85 NEXT UP vs. Nebraska tomorrow

What looked to be a relatively leisurely path into the tournament's evening bracket proved to be anything but as the Rainbows saw a 14-point lead at the 4:56 mark dwindle to three with less than 2 minutes left before hanging on for the win.

"A win's a win -- we'll take it," UH guard Matt Lojeski sighed after the game.

A crowd of 4,172 saw three Hawaii players score at least 20 points as UH extended its streak of first-round wins in the Rainbow Classic to 11 ... barely.

Matt Lojeski scored 24 points on 9-for-13 shooting from the field and Bobby Nash added 21 and eight rebounds. Center Ahmet Gueye, who had averaged five points over the previous four games, broke out for 20 points as the Rainbows shot 57 percent from the field.

Guard Matt Gibson added 11 points and eight assists and made two free throws with 1.4 seconds left to finally assure UH of a spot in the semifinals.

"We came out ready to play again. Our offense this week has been much more crisp ... and there were times tonight where it looked really good," UH coach Riley Wallace said. "And the whole thing fell apart in the second half."

"We played really well the first half," Lojeski said. "Then we looked really bad, no consistency."

Hawaii (6-4) advances to face Nebraska in tomorrow's second semifinal at 7:30 p.m. San Francisco (4-8) will have the early wake-up call for the 11 a.m. consolation game against Wyoming.

"We end up winning, we play at night, and we've got our work cut out because Nebraska will be good," Wallace said.

Forward Alan Wiggins Jr. led the Dons with 24 points and Armondo Surratt fueled the late rally to finish with 22.

The Dons' defensive pressure sparked their comeback as UH turned the ball over 12 times in the second half after giving it away just five times in the first.

"We allowed them to shoot too high a percentage from the field, we let them get off on the inside," USF coach Jessie Evans said. "The last few minutes of the game we did push up and got our hands on some loose balls.

"But we've got to play that way throughout the 40 minutes."

Gueye scored 12 points and six rebounds in the first half to help UH take a 41-30 lead into halftime.

"Ahmet is a big key for our offense," Nash said. "We get him the ball, we get him fired up and ready to go and loose, he's unstoppable. He's 6-8 and strong as an ox."

Wiggins matched Gueye early, scoring 10 of USF's first 14 points, but didn't score again until making a free throw with 10 minutes left in the game.

Nash, coming off a career night against Northwestern State last Saturday, maintained his scoring touch in making six of his first eight attempts, two from 3-point range, and had 14 points by the 7-minute mark.

After Nash and Gueye combined for 24 of Hawaii's first 27 points, Lojeski and Gibson heated up from the perimeter to send UH on a 14-2 run late in the first half.

With UH clinging to a 27-25 lead, Gibson found Lojeski open in the right corner for a 3-pointer to start the run. He and Gibson later hit back-to-back 3s from nearly the same spot at the top of the key to give UH its biggest lead of the half at 39-25.

The Rainbows stretched their lead to 16 with 7 minutes left in the game, but the Dons were able to hang around and cut the UH lead to seven at 77-70 with 3:54 left.

"We got a little tentative," Wallace said. "When we did get it over down the last 2 or 3 minutes we didn't attack the basket like we were doing earlier."

Surratt scored on back-to-back layups, the second coming off a steal on the inbounds pass, as the Dons scored seven straight points to raise the tension in the arena.

Gueye, who had been on the bench resting his knee for a few minutes, re-entered the game and made two free throws to extend the UH lead back to nine.

A 3-pointer by Surratt cut the UH lead to six and, after two Lojeski free throws, the Dons closed to four on a putback by Johnny Dukes.

A turnover with 1:03 left gave USF possession and Surratt's 3-pointer to tie was off the mark and Nash grabbed the rebound. Nash then fed Lojeski for a layup to give UH an 86-81 lead.

Still, the Dons hung around and trailed by two when Antonio Kellogg soared in for a dunk with 3.1 seconds left. And it wasn't until Gibson made two free throws with 1.4 seconds left that UH could breathe easy.

"It was an ugly win. But with every win that you have, you learn from it," Nash said. "I think our mistakes tonight are very correctable, it just takes us concentrating for 40 minutes.

"If we keep making mistakes over and over it could cost us some games and we can't let that happen."

Hawaii 89, San Francisco 85

DONS (4-7, 0-1 RAINBOW CLASSIC)

	fg	fga	ft	fta	min	reb	a	tp
Watkins	4	7	1	1	26	4	1	9
Wiggins	10	17	4	6	31	6	0	24
Dukes	2	5	0	0	24	10	2	4
Kellogg	4	9	2	2	33	3	4	11
Surratt	8	19	3	4	37	1	5	22
Quezada	2	5	6	7	24	2	2	11
Polakovic	0	0	0	0	3	0	0	0
Hernandez	0	0	0	0	7	0	1	0
Byrd	1	2	2	2	13	3	0	4
Cavic	0	0	0	0	3	1	0	0
TEAM						1
Totals	31	64	18	22	200	31	15	85

RAINBOW WARRIORS (5-4, 1-0 RC)

	fg	fga	ft	fta	min	reb	a	tp
Nash	7	13	5	6	40	8	1	21
Gueye	9	13	2	5	27	7	2	20
Owsley	1	3	0	0	14	3	4	2
Gibson	3	9	4	6	36	2	8	11
Lojeski	9	13	3	4	38	5	5	24
Waters	0	0	0	0	6	0	0	0
Luettgerodt	2	3	1	2	28	3	3	6
Verwers	0	1	1	4	9	0	0	1
Follmer	1	1	2	2	3	0	0	4
TEAM						5
Totals	32	56	18	29	200	33	23	89

Key -- fg: field goals made; fga: field goals attempted; ft: free throws made; fta: free throws attempted; min: minutes played; reb: rebounds; a: assists; tp: total points.

Halftime -- Hawaii 41, San Francisco 30

3-point goals -- USF 5-14 (Surratt 3-9, Quezada 1-1, Kellogg 1-3, Dukes 0-1), Hawaii 7-15 (Lojeski 3-4, Nash 2-5, Luettgerodt 1-1, Gibson 1-5). Personal fouls -- USF 22, Hawaii 16. Fouled out -- Wiggins.

Steals -- USF 11 (Quezada 3, Surratt 2, Dukes 2, Wiggins, Kellogg, Hernandez, Cavic), Hawaii 5 (Lojeski 3, Gibson, Nash). Blocked shots -- USF 5 (Dukes 3, Wiggins 2), Hawaii 4 (Lojeski 2, Gueye, Nash). Turnovers -- USF 15 (Kellogg 5, Quezada 4, Dukes 3, Watkins, Wiggins, Surratt), Hawaii 17 (Lojeski 5, Gibson 4, Luettgerodt 3, Gueye 2, Nash, Waters, Follmer).

Officials -- Scott Thornley, Winston Stith, Mike Littlewood. A--4,172.