HONOLULU — For much of his three-year Hawaii basketball career, Ryan Rapp has stood and cheered in big moments for others. On Saturday night, it was finally his turn to get the love.
The senior wing came off the bench to score a career-high 19 points to lead the Rainbow Warriors to a 71-62 win over visiting Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. A crowd of 3,001 (4,614 tickets issued) saw Rapp sink all five of his 3-point attempts and convert seven of eight attempts overall. He keyed an 18-2 run bridging the halves as UH turned an eight-point deficit into a nine-point lead.
[Note: See below for more photos of Hawaii against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.]
"I was just trying to help the guys win," said the native of Melbourne, Australia, who'd hit a total of four 3s in five games on the season coming into the night. "It doesn’t matter if I score five points or 20 points. At the end of the day it comes down to winning."
Guard Marcus Greene scored 15, forward Gytis Nemeiksa added 14 and center Tanner Christensen was 0-for-5 from the free-throw line but converted four of five from the field for eight points.
UH heads into the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic with a 6-3 record. The Rainbow Warriors open the nationally televised eight-team tournament against Charlotte on Dec. 22. Rapp recalled JoVon McClanahan's dramatic 3-pointer to beat SMU for the 2022 Diamond Head title.
"I was here when we won it, when JoVon hit that game-winner, and there’s no better feeling than winning that championship. Our expectation is to win it," Rapp said.
Rapp attained his undergraduate degree at Washington State in three years, then transferred to Hawaii. But he was held to three games his first season of 2022-23 due to injuries. He got his first real experience in a UH uniform as a role player last year and was the only returning starter for Eran Ganot heading into this season. But, Ganot pointed out, Rapp missed five weeks in late summer, came back, missed another five weeks with a hand injury that cost him any participation in the Outrigger Rainbow Classic, and then he was limited for the last week-plus with an illness that had swept through the team.
Saturday was Rapp's best performance beyond his shooting as he supplied six rebounds and three assists against a Corpus Christi team known for its in-your-face ball pressure. He told assistant coach Gibson Johnson he would grab his first offensive rebound of the season, and he turned and grinned at the former UH big man after doing just that. Rapp collected two in a 14-second span midway in the first half.
"We do think he’s a guy who’s grown up with the game, who can shoot better than he has shot it, and you saw that today. You root for those guys," Ganot said. "His leadership, his presence and his rebounding today complemented the shooting. Hopefully it’s a sign of things to come and he can stay healthy."
Ganot felt his team took a step back during its road trip to Grand Canyon and Long Beach State, in which a combined 37 turnovers contributed heavily to a pair of losses.
Mitigating points off turnovers was the emphasis against the Islanders (6-5) — so nicknamed for their island campus in Oso Bay in the Gulf of Mexico — who won 21 games last season and this season have generated nearly 20 points per game off of giveaways.
UH, which started a three-guard lineup of Kody Williams, Greene and Tom Beattie, committed 10 turnovers in the first half, but most of those were in the halfcourt and the Islanders failed to take advantage, scoring only six points off the giveaways. With UH trailing 21-13, Rapp connected on two 3s in two minutes and followed with a lefty layup amid three Islanders.
During the 15-7 UH spurt to close the half, the 6-foot-2 Greene pinned a Jordan Roberts layup attempt on the window — the Houston Christian transfer's first block of the season — and the teams entered the locker rooms tied at 28.
UH committed only six turnovers in the second half and Corpus Christi was unable to decisively win points off of turnovers at 16-14 for the game.
Williams opened the second half with a 3 and Christensen followed with a pair of dunks on assists from Rapp. Rapp then stole the ball and scored in transition for a 37-28 lead.
"I think we kind of took the energy at them starting the second half," Rapp said. "They were really good at pressuring the ball and we turned it over too many times in the first half. That was addressed at halftime; for us to win that game we had to hold onto the ball. The first four or five minutes we handled the ball and took it out of them; they weren’t expecting us to be as aggressive. We need to be like that all the time, being strong with the ball. I think that’s our next big step."
Ganot lauded his team for its ball control for the last 25 minutes of the game, extending credit to freshman Aaron Hunkin-Claytor for 10 solid minutes of relief as Corpus Christi sent a man to hound UH's ball-handlers 94 feet all game.
The Southland Conference team sent all five men upcourt on defense when they trailed by double digits with 15 minutes left. UH, however, did a mostly solid job of handling the increased pressure.
The exception was when big man Garry Clark, the Islanders’ top scorer, thunder dunked it off a Damarion Dennis steal on Greene, but Clark picked up his fourth foul contesting Nemeiksa at the other end and took a seat.
"We were definitely expecting it," Ganot said of the blitz. "Sometimes you need to go through it."
Corpus Christi kept coming, however, with a 10-1 run and got within 43-41 on a Eurostep layup by Dian Wright-Forde.
Wright-Forde scored a driving layup to get his team within a point, but Greene responded with a layup and a 3-pointer, and Christensen put in another point-blank shot for a 54-46 lead with under seven minutes left.
Islanders coach Jim Shaw was issued a technical foul for protesting a non-call on a hard screen by Harry Rouhliadeff with 5:45 remaining. Greene sank both tech foul shots and Rapp followed with his fourth 3-pointer for an 11-point lead.
Two foul calls on Corpus Christi's Jaden Walker in the first 12 seconds of the game seemed to blunt some of the Islanders' aggressiveness on the ball. Shaw did not remark on the officiating afterward.
"We put some pressure on them but they had a level of toughness and you’ve gotta give credit to their guards, they stepped up and took care of the ball," Shaw said.
"We got it to within one point ... you gotta finish it out," he said. "But credit to Hawaii, they made some big plays, they were able to find the roll man Christensen on a layin, and then Rapp hit big shots. Once that happened, they got it to eight and it was hard to get it back down."
Clark fouled out on a Nemeiksa three-point play with 2:17 to go. Clark and backup big man Shilo Jackson scored 11 apiece to lead the Islanders, who dropped to 0-4 on the road.
Note: This story was updated with details and quotes.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.