In Saturday’s Big West basketball matchup against UC San Diego, Hawaii came out with the game plan to “own the paint” through its drives and post action.
“We didn’t do that at all,” UH coach Eran Ganot said with a rueful laugh after a 67-61 loss at LionTree Arena that dropped the Rainbow Warriors into a three-way tie for eighth place.
Once the ball was tipped in La Jolla, California, the struggling ‘Bows (10-9, 2-5 BWC) reverted to their recent dependence on the 3-point shot. For a time, it worked, as they made five of their first eight, all from beyond the arc. But UH soon gave up a game-changing 17-point run to UCSD – the most prolific outside shooting team in the conference – and, after briefly capturing the lead in the second half, UH fell to the increasingly potent Big West regular-season contender that is in the final season of its transition to full Division I status.
Twenty turnovers were a season high and ultimately UH’s undoing. They came in a variety of ways – shot-clock violations, illegal screens and miscommunicated passes – and at frequent intervals.
Meanwhile, Ganot experimented with several new lineups, seemingly on the fly.
“You know, you do not want to be figuring out your team in January, but this is the reality of where we’re at,” Ganot told Spectrum News in a postgame phone interview. “I think we saw some things that could maybe help us moving forward with some groups.”
Guard Juan Munoz made the first start of his career as Ganot extended the benching of usual starter JoVon McClanahan from the second half of Thursday’s loss at Long Beach State. Munoz responded with a season-high 21 points on 5-for-8 3-point shooting, topping 1,000 points for his college career, including his five years at Longwood.
McClanahan actually ended up playing more minutes, 33 to Munoz’s 29, as the senior co-captain entered after a few minutes, then came out to start the second half alongside Munoz. He scored 11 points with five assists, and the two combined for just two of the team's turnovers.
"Nothing (went into the point guard change) other than Juan just worked and earned the opportunity," Ganot said. "I thought he did great with with it. I thought he did great both halves and overall for the game. We felt we had to try something different for the second half. JoVon had a good bounce-back game. He was great defensively."
Shooting guard Noel Coleman scored 11, but he sat down the stretch in favor of UH’s seldom-used third point guard, Kody Williams.
On the wing, Ryan Rapp started but was benched after five minutes. Matthue Cotton was likewise scoreless in 12 minutes and freshman Tom Beattie, who’d been a regular backup, did not play.
At one point, UH trotted out a never-before-seen lineup of McClanahan, Williams, Akira Jacobs, Harry Rouhliadeff and Mor Seck.
Williams wound up playing 11 second-half minutes, several in a three-guard lineup that Ganot credited for helping keep his team in it.
UH eventually got to its game plan of working the ball inside; centers Bernardo da Silva and Seck hadn’t attempted a shot in the first half but combined to score eight points in the second. UH went on a 14-3 run coming out of halftime for a 40-38 lead.
Munoz hit back-to-back 3s to get UH within 59-55 with 2:31 left. UH reached the four-point margin three more times, but Eric Olen’s Tritons had an answer on each occasion. Slithery guard Bryce Pope scored his team’s last six points on a jumper and four free throws as UCSD (12-7, 6-1) beat UH for the first time in five Big West meetings. The Tritons, who are eligible to win the BWC regular-season championship but not participate in the Big West tournament, improved to 8-1 at home.
UCSD was coming off its first conference loss of the season at UC Irvine on Thursday.
"We're a complete team, or we feel like we are," Olen said in a postgame interview posted by UCSD Athletics. "I thought defensively our activity was great. Three shot-clock violations (forced), but also 20 turnovers overall is important for us, especially when they're shooting the ball as well as they have been."
The Tritons outscored the 'Bows 26-7 in points off of turnovers.
"We've got a connected group that plays with toughness and competes every night. It's a good recipe," Olen said.
Forward Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones, a three-year player at Division II Hawaii Hilo, who joined the Tritons in the offseason, scored 13 and grabbed a team-high six rebounds. Ganot credited him for his inside-out play and passing.
UH next faces a fellow team that so far has not lived up to preseason expectations. UC Santa Barbara (11-7, 4-4) lost at home to Cal State Fullerton on Saturday. The Gauchos, featuring reigning BWC Player of the Year Ajay Mitchell, visit the Stan Sheriff Center on Thursday and last-place Cal Poly (4-15, 0-7) is in town on Saturday.
UH is at risk of missing the Big West tournament entirely if it does not improve its position. It has never had a losing record in a Big West men’s basketball season in its 12 years in the conference.
Ganot said his group will not panic.
“(We’ll) put ourselves in position if we focus in and look at some different combinations, different things to do,” the ninth-year coach said. “It’s not like … we’re getting run off the court. We’re not as far off as you’d think but we gotta have a little more urgency and terms of this week and our prep to break through. It’s not going to happen for us; we gotta collectively continue to work. It’s a good group of guys. We just gotta continue to work, believe there will be a breakthrough and then work off of the breakthrough.”
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.