Winning the unofficial “Men’s College Basketball State Tournament” proved to be a big challenge this season, but the University of Hawai’i completed the harder-than-expected sweep Tuesday night by shooting past Hawai’i Pacific, 67-63.
A small and bewildered crowd of 1,816 in SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center watched Kody Williams score a career-high 24 points — including 7-for-8 shooting from 3-point range — and Gytis Nemeiksa add 13 points and eight rebounds off the bench as the Warriors improved to 5-1.
Senior guard Sherman Brashiers scored 22 points and grabbed seven boards and center Jonas Visser added 14 points and eight boards as the Sharks lost their fourth straight game to fall to 2-4.
UH had struggled past UH Hilo (64-61) and Chaminade (85-80) in exhibition action prior to the season, and HPU might have posed the biggest threat of the three.
The Sharks closed the score to 62-61 on Visser’s short bank shot with 36 seconds remaining, and fouled reserve guard Marcus Greene with 29.4 ticks on the clock. Greene sank both free throws to make it 64-61, and HPU turned the ball over on Charlie Weber’s errant pass 11 seconds later.
Williams was immediately fouled and swished both free throws to extend the lead to 66-61, but Visser scored on a layup to cut it to 66-63 with 0:04.5 showing on the clock. Ryan Rapp then barely avoided a five-second violation on the ensuing inbounds pass, finding Tanner Christensen near midcourt.
Christensen was immediately fouled and made the second of two free throws to effectively seal the victory.
“Credit to HPU, I think they were awesome,” Warriors coach Eran Ganot said. “The first half was all HPU. The second half, we decided to show up, and you show up with your presence, your competing, your talk, your spirit, your fight … I thought we played really well in the second half. You could feel it.”
Hawai’i needed all of that effort as the Sharks more than proved they could hold their own, building leads of 4-0 and 14-5 in the game’s first five minutes. After the Warriors bounced back and took a 25-21 lead on Tom Beattie’s 3-pointer from the right corner 12 minutes in, HPU responded with a stunning 13-0 run capped by Avi Halpert’s free throw to put the Sharks ahead, 34-25, with 2:39 remaining in the first half.
UH was able to close it to 38-33 at the break, but only because 8-for-16 shooting from 3-point range made up for being outscored in the paint, 22-6.
“We’re going to win a lot of games when we shoot that percentage, but the biggest thing for us is we can’t put ourselves in those positions where we’re down and we gotta rely on our shooting like that to bring us back,” said Warriors guard Ryan Rapp, who finished with 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting from beyond the arc. “We gotta make sure we come out and compete for 40 minutes — we didn’t compete at the level we should and what we’re capable of for those 40 minutes.”
Hawai’i opened the second half with a 21-6 run capped by Rapp’s 3-pointer from the left wing to make it 54-44 with 13:03 left. But HPU clawed back and would not go away, eventually staging a 17-8 surge that cut it to 62-61 with 36 seconds remaining.
“Credit to HPU, they came out, they threw the first punch and they kept punching,” said Williams. “In the second half, they came out and kept throwing bigger punches. But we end up getting the ‘W.’ “
Ganot said he was disappointed in the Warriors’ slow start in the first half, but was pleased with how they played in the second.
“The first half wasn’t even close — we were fortunate to even be in the game at halftime,” Ganot said. “They hit us in the mouth and we didn’t recover, although we did close the half fairly well. And in the second half, I was really proud of our guys. Both things can be true — disappointed in areas, but proud of our response.”