The Hawaii men’s basketball team could not keep pace in the upper tier of the Big West in a 76-68 loss at UC Irvine on Thursday night.

In a battle of teams jockeying for separation near the top of the conference standings, the Anteaters jumped out to a quick double-digit lead in front of a “white-out” Bren Events Center crowd and withstood a few charges from the Rainbow Warriors. Both teams are in the thick of one of their most difficult stretches of the season with four games in eight days.

Forward Kamaka Hepa led the ‘Bows with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Point guard JoVon McClanahan scored all of his 14 points in the second half and Noel Coleman added 13 in the loss.

UH (14-5, 5-2 Big West), which was coming off a home win over Cal State Northridge on Monday and had a tighter turnaround than usual flying to the mainland because of an unusual Big West schedule this season, has little time to dwell on the loss as it heads to conference leader UC Riverside (14-6, 7-1) for a Saturday night contest. UCI also played on Monday, a home loss to UC Santa Barbara.

UH held UCI, one of the top 3-point-shooting teams in the country at 40% coming into the night, to just 15.8% (3-for-19 from deep). It wasn’t enough to deal the hosts a second straight loss at the Bren.

UCI (13-6, 6-1) was without injured starting 7-foot center Bent Leuchten, but the Anteaters, renowned for their interior presence under coach Russell Turner, managed to post a 44-24 advantage in paint points, anyway. Backup big man Akiva McBirney-Griffin stepped in and supplied 11 points, and 6-foot-4 guard Dawson Baker contributed a 17-point, 10-rebound double-double. His Backcourt mate DJ Davis put in a game-high 18 points.

UH trailed by 14 points early, rallied to within eight at halftime thanks to a buzzer-beating 3 by Hepa, and trimmed it to three in the opening minutes of the second half on another Hepa jumper.

Irvine countered with consecutive paint buckets from Davis sandwiching a steal by McBirney-Griffin.

Coleman’s open-court steal and layup made it 41-36 with 15 minutes left, but Justin Hohn answered with an immediate 3.

The closest UH got from that point on was six and the farthest was 14. Reserve post Dean Keeler went up-and-under on Bernardo da Silva for a three-point play for his only points of the game, pushing it back to nine with 10 minutes left.

UH backup point guard Justus Jackson returned from a two-game injury absence and had two points and an assist in nine minutes.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.