HONOLULU — Each time he scored – a succession of pull-up mid-rangers that buried Hawaii, one bucket at a time – UC Irvine guard Pierre Crockrell II looked back at the Anteaters bench, and beyond it, a contingent bearing UCI garb in the stands.
After Big West-leading UCI dealt UH its fourth straight home loss, 60-50, thanks in large part to Crockrell’s 16 points on eight clutch field goals, most of the crowd of 2,994 (4,453 tickets issued) filed out quietly upon the Rainbow Warriors’ latest setback. But a group of a few dozen remained, for they had reason to celebrate as the 6-foot guard soon went over to join them.
On Wednesday, Crockrell paid respects at the grave of his grandfather, Dennis Yue, an Oahu resident who died in 2013. Crockrell’s mother, Tricia Yue, is a Mililani High graduate and much of that side of his Korean side of the family still resides in Mililani. Many were in attendance Thursday.
In total, it made for an especially meaningful 48-hour trip for the fifth-year senior, who was bestowed a candy lei.
Of his grandfather, he said, “Big UH fan. Growing up, he always asked me, ‘You gonna go play basketball at UH?’” Crockrell, who hails from Tacoma, Wash., told Spectrum News. “To come here my final year to get a win, I can’t really put into words how big this is for me and my family. But it’s all God and my grandfather; he was with me out here tonight.”
His Hawaii clan included his mother, Tricia Yue, grandmother Karen Yue and aunt Traci Abear.
Crockrell had fresh memories of struggles here last February, on UH’s senior night, when the ‘Bows defeated the ‘Eaters 72-67. Not only that, UH beat his team by an identical score in the 2019 Rainbow Classic, when he was here as a true freshman with Pacific and got spot bench minutes.
Every time UCI (12-5, 5-0 BWC) needed a big bucket, he delivered from an area on the floor that few players thrive in the modern age of hoops, between 10 and 18 feet. He hit Irvine’s last three baskets of the game to restore a lead that had been trimmed to three, a response to some timely shot-making by UH guard Juan Munoz.
UH (9-7, 1-3) wanted to take away the playmaking tendencies from the Big West’s assists leader, who came in averaging more than six helpers per game. It worked last year – not so much this time – he got his points, plus three assists and zero turnovers – and the ‘Bows dropped into a tie for eighth place with 16 games to play.
“He’s a great player. He made tough plays, hat’s off to him,” Munoz said of Crockrell. “I thought that was the difference tonight – he was making shots. We knew going into the game that he was a distributor looking for his teammates to go. (We) kind of (took) that away, but he was making shots tonight.”
On a night when postgame answers were few for UH, coach Eran Ganot likewise nodded his respect to Crockrell as a team leader.
“He got comfortable early and stayed consistent throughout,” Ganot said. “They put him in the middle of that zone at times. But he understands that his job is to run a high-level offense. He doesn’t care of it’s him or (a teammate). Their offense is close to 50 (percent), close to 40 from 3, good free-throw shooting team, high assist to turnover ratio. He doesn’t care if he’s the one making plays (for others) or if he’s the one who has to take it. He knows getting guys shots is important to him.”
UH, which took more than half of its shots from beyond the 3-point arc in a road loss at Cal State Northridge last weekend, attempted only 17 on Thursday. The ‘Bows made only three of them, with Ryan Rapp breaking the seal a few minutes into the second half.
Chasing the ‘Bows off the arc was a bullet point for UCI.
“They rely a lot on off-ball screens to create those (looks),” Anteaters coach Russell Turner said. “I thought we did a good job beating the screens and keeping good pressure on the ball. We could bother them if we did a few other things well. I thought our attention to detail and execution of our game plan was good tonight, defensively.”
The starting UH backcourt struggled mightily as a result; point guard JoVon McClanahan shot 2-for-12 for four points and shooting guard Noel Coleman, the program’s 15th all-time leading scorer at over 1,000 points, was 0-for-6 for his second scoreless outing in the last six games.
UH shot 36.8% for the game and scored just 20 in the first half. When things weren’t going well, Ganot observed what he called a tendency for his group to revert to selfish tendencies, and flat energy that resulted in an 18-2 UCI run that resulted in a 13-point halftime deficit. He pointedly criticized an official over a call and somewhat purposefully drew one of the few technical fouls of his career.
“I went over the line but not extremely over the line,” Ganot said. “But that was part of the searching (for answers). I didn’t like the call, and I didn’t like the way we were playing. I didn’t like the fire at all.”
Ganot felt his team’s defense was solid, with the exception of Crockrell. Starting center Bent Leuchten scored just two points with five rebounds but UCI got a big lift from backup Carter Welling, who scored 12 on 5-for-5 shooting in just 10 minutes.
UH managed only two field goals in the final nine minutes, including a Rapp basket at the buzzer when the result was academic.
The bright spot of the morose night was center Bernardo da Silva, who had 17 points and 14 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the season.
The reeling ‘Bows host UC Riverside (7-10, 2-3) at 7 p.m. Saturday in what amounts to a must-win game to avoid falling further in the standings in a year that tournament seeding is paramount.
“Coach always talks about how the best is yet to come,” da Silva said. “We just gotta stick with it. We have a lot of games to still play and an opportunity to bounce back on Saturday. That’s how we’ve got to see it.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.