HONOLULU — An improbable series of events nearly allowed the Hawaii men’s basketball team to escape with a miraculous victory against Texas A&M-Commerce on Wednesday night.
UH coach Eran Ganot wasn’t so sure that his team deserved to.
“I think we maybe out-competed them in the last minute, but they totally out-competed us for 39,” Ganot said after the Lions, in their first year as a transitional Division I NCAA member, escaped with a 53-51 win.
The Rainbow Warriors couldn’t buy a basket or a rebound for most of the night against the quicker, more athletic member of the Southland Conference. Commerce, which led by as many as 14 points in the second half, still led by seven on Demarcus Demonia’s fast-break layup with 17 seconds left.
Noel Coleman fought for the rebound of Samuta Avea’s missed 3 and fed it back to Avea for a layup with four seconds left.
UH, pressing full-court, then stole the Lions’ in-bounds pass and Coleman banged a corner 3. The Rainbows again forced a turnover on the in-bounds pass — this time when Demonia’s pass was too wide for forward Alex Peavy. Peavy made contact with official Mark Fulton along the sideline and Fulton, who was out of bounds while touching Peavy and perhaps also the ball, blew his whistle as Peavy tapped the ball back into play.
UH point guard JoVon McClanahan collected the loose ball and put in what, for a moment, appeared to be a would-be winning 3-pointer from the right wing with a fraction of a second left. But the officials, after a review, upheld the whistle and waved off the shot.
The Rainbows had a final chance inbounding from the sideline with 1.8 seconds left. They got the ball to Kamaka Hepa near where McClanahan stuck his shot a moment earlier, but Hepa’s contested look fell well short.
“That’s not the story of this game,” Ganot said of the wild couple of final possessions. “That can happen to a lot of immature teams, ‘oh that, this.’ No. The rebounding was the difference in the game and our effort level, getting out-competed. Not the last play.”
UH was out-rebounded 43-31, including at a nearly 2-to-1 ratio in a dreadful first half that saw it put up a season-low 15 points.
Despite numerous rebounding chances created by their abysmal 5-for-23 shooting in the period, the Rainbows did not grab an offensive board until the second half. Ganot called it a “massacre” at all five positions as his team’s lack of shot-making affected its effort.
“That was something we talked a lot about after the game,” said Hepa, who said the team was challenged by the coaches in the locker room. “(Commerce) came in ready to compete and we didn’t. That’s what it came down to. Not necessarily the physicality aspect, just the want to compete. I think that’s what we lacked today and what they had.”
Hepa couldn't pinpoint exactly what led to the letdown in effort, but, in response to a question, acknowledged that underestimating the opponent could've played into it.
Commerce (4-4), which was a late addition to the UH schedule, was all too happy to let out a sigh of relief and fly back to Austin with its third win over a D-I team as a D-I team. The Lions entered the game with a KenPom rating of 278 of 363 D-I teams. Hawaii had a KenPom of 143 as of Thursday.
Lions coach Jaret von Rosenberg credited his players for preventing UH from getting back into the game all at once. The Lions successfully disrupted the UH offense for much of the game with their on-ball defense, and at the other end slashed to the rim effectively to help make up for their own dismal shooting.
“It’s easier to learn and get better from a win than it is a loss,” said von Rosenberg, who took himself to task for not calling his last timeout to settle his team. “That last sequence, and Hawaii had a lot to do with it, made it hard for us to get the ball in bounds. If that shot (counts) at the end, it’s pretty gut-wrenching.”
UH (5-2) experienced a rapid about-face from a trio of feel-good wins at the Cannon Activities Center in Laie around Thanksgiving week, to the dismay of 2,176 in house at SimpliFi Arena.
The game joined the worst losses of the eight-year Ganot era — lowly Southern Illinois-Edwardsville to open the 2016-17 season; a 26-point loss to Illinois State in the 2016 Diamond Head Classic; and back-to-back home losses to UC Riverside (5-17) and Cal State Northridge (5-19) in February of 2018.
“We need to come together as opposed to separating, because a lot of teams after a game like this can start to separate,” Hepa said. “I don’t think that’s something we’re going to do. It’s important for us to grow together and move forward from today.”
Coleman scored a game-high 18 points, Hepa had 11 points and seven rebounds and Bernardo da Silva grabbed 10 boards.
UH has a week to prepare for its lone nonconference road trip to face UNLV (7-0) at the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nev., on Wednesday.
“You grow from pain,” Ganot said. “Unfortunately, we’re in one of those (periods). I’m looking forward to our response.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com