Second verse, worse than the first.
For the second time in 21 days, UC Irvine held Hawai’i to a season-low scoring output, this time for a convincing 66-49 road victory in Big West Conference men’s basketball action Saturday night.
A crowd of 4,062 in SimpliFi Arena at the Stan Sheriff Center watched center Bent Leuchten score a game-high 21 points with seven rebounds and four blocks to help the Anteaters improve to 22-4 overall and 12-2 in league play. Tanner Christensen scored 11 points with four boards and Ryan Rapp, Aaron Hunkin-Claytor and Gytis Nmeiksa each added 10 points for the Warriors, who fell to 14-12 and 6-9.
UC Irvine held the lead for all but 1 minute, 24 seconds of game time and the margin was in the double digits from 3:34 left in the first half through the final second half whistle.
It was a similar story as the Anteaters’ 71-55 victory over UH on Jan. 25, in which they jumped out to an 11-0 lead and never looked back. Statistically and emotionally, this defeat at home might be considered worse.
“I think the tone was set early — we went to ours, and they went to theirs,” Warriors coach Eran Ganot said in a postgame radio interview. “We bobbled it and turned it over, and they just backed us down in the paint. But I do have conviction and belief, and we’ll keep working on it and that will come through because at least we know if it does, our defense will be there, our rebounding will be there.”
On the bright side, Hawai’i held UC Irvine to 44.2 percent (23 of 52) shooting from the field, including just 23.8 percent (5 of 21) on 3-point attempts. The bad news is, the Warriors were even worse: a frustrating 29.1 percent (16 of 55) on field goals, including just 2 of 11 (18.2 percent) from beyond the arc.
“We gotta be mature and confident and have swag whether we make or miss a shot, even in the paint, because we’re working work hard to get the ball in those spots,” Ganot said. “To play hesitant because we missed some shots early … again, the game was decided in terms of the turnovers and the paint.”
UH committed 14 turnovers, and the Anteaters scored 16 points off the miscues. UCI also outscored the Warriors, 34-28 in the paint, and 14 to 5 on fast breaks.
More details to come.
Big West Conference Standings
UC Irvine 11-2
UC San Diego 11-2
Cal State Northridge 10-4
UC Davis 10-5
UC Riverside 9-6
UC Santa Barbara 8-7
HAWAI’I 6-9
Cal State Bakersfield 5-10
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo 4-10
Long Beach State 3-11
Cal State Fullerton 1-14
It has to be driving 🚗 coach Ganot crazy to see his team constantly turn the ball over. Last week, the Bows had 6 traveling calls against them. Same old theme, turnovers, long non scoring droughts and consistently not playing a full 40 minutes on the offensive end. If it weren’t for their defense and their rebounding, they would already be out of the tournament race.