Rainbows’ rally falls a bit short

Two second-half gaffes contributed to a restless night for the Hawaii basketball team.

Point guard Keith Shamburger was ejected with his second technical foul with plenty of time left. Then, after pulling within four of New Mexico State in the final minute, UH called a timeout it didn’t have. Those miscues helped derail an otherwise spirited comeback in a 95-88 loss to the Aggies early Tuesday morning.

UH finished the season-opening Outrigger Hotels and Resorts Rainbow Classic at 2-1, as did NMSU. But the tourney title went to 2-1 Western Michigan because the Broncos allowed the fewest points.

The Rainbow Warriors have another day or two to shake off the early-morning (2:30 a.m.) loss on national TV before heading to Kansas City to play Missouri (2-0) on Saturday.

The Rainbow Warriors nearly overcame a significant size disadvantage and a 16-point deficit with 5:29 to play. Guard Garrett Nevels scored 21 of his game-high 26 points in the second half, leading the late-game charge.

"You can either back down or try to fight back," Nevels said. "You have to look in the mirror and fight back next time, fight harder against Missouri."

A couple of mistakes in particular against the two-time defending WAC champion Aggies will likely stay with the ‘Bows.

Shamburger was ejected for talking to an official during a dead ball with 7:50 remaining. He was issued his first infraction a couple of minutes into the game on a double-technical with New Mexico State guard Daniel Mullings.

"It was the same ref (on both techs)," UH coach Gib Arnold said. "He’s pretty quick to blow. I think there was a lot of jawing going on. I think he could have chose just about any play to do that. You know, it is what it is. Gotta play cool, gotta play calm."

Backup guard Quincy Smith took over the controls and redshirt freshman Dyrbe Enos came in for Shamburger and played shooting guard. The Kamehameha product played out the rest of the game. UH, behind Nevels, made its run with Shamburger out.

"I mean, he’s our point guard. He starts our offense," Nevels said. "When he left, I saw it as the opportunity to bring us back, just be more aggressive."

Nevels was asked if the game’s four player technical fouls (two on UH, two on NMSU) were deserved.

"None of them were," Nevels said.

Smith (15 points) fouled out with 27 seconds left, right after UH’s costly bench technical for requesting a timeout with none remaining. The Aggies went from up four to up eight, effectively ending the game. New Mexico State point guard K.C. Ross-Miller made 10 straight at the foul line to close it out.

"It was a miscommunication amongst our staff about whether we had a timeout left or not," Arnold said. "I was under the impression we had one timeout left.

"That won’t happen again. We’ll make sure of that."

Tournament MVP Isaac Fotu had 20 points and nine rebounds while dealing with a massive NMSU front line, which included 7-foot-5 center Sim Bhullar. Bhullar had 15 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks. He shot 6-for-7 from the field, with dunks as all six of his makes.

‘Bows senior forward Christian Standhardinger (3-for-12 shooting, nine points, five rebounds) was visibly frustrated going against the beefy front line of the Aggies. UH went to zone defenses for much of the game.

"We’ll continue to work on doubling down," Arnold said. "We usually play bigs 1-on-1, I like my bigs defensively. But when they’re overmatched like that we have to do a better job of double-teaming."

UH was able to press extensively in wins over Tennessee State and Western Michigan, but mostly dropped back after New Mexico State’s athletic wings broke it easily in the early going. Mullings finished with a team-high 21 points.

"Probably not as much (open court) as we should have. We should have got a lot more transition baskets for us bigs," Fotu said.

Fotu hit the first 3-pointer of his career to start the game as UH looked to draw Bhullar out of the paint.

"No one wants to be in the paint with a 7-foot-5 guy," said Fotu, who cradled a packet of painkillers in the postgame press conference.

UH took Tuesday off from practice and resumes today in preparation for the Mizzou game.

There’s a chance the ‘Bows will have injured starting guard Brandon Spearman (right ankle sprain) back against the Tigers.

Key — fg-a: field goals made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; rb: rebounds; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points; a: assists; to: turnovers; min: minutes played.

Halftime — New Mexico State 46, Hawaii 37 3-points goals — NMSU 6-14 (Eldridge 3-5, Mullins 1-1, Aronis 1-4, Ross-Miller 1-4). Hawaii 7-20 (Nevels 4-6, Smith 1-1, Shamburger 1-3, Fotu 1-4, Enos 0-1, Thomas 0-1, Standhardinger 0-2, Valdes 0-2). Steals — NMSU 4 (Ross-Miller 2, Mullings, Landry). Hawaii 9 (Rozitis 3, Standhardinger 2, Nevels 2, Shamburger, Jawato). Blocked shots — NMSU 6 (Bhullar 4, Nephawe, Mullings). Hawaii 6 (Rozitis 3, Standhardinger, Nevels, Valdes). Technicals — NMSU 2 (Mullings, Ross-Miller). Officials — Tony Padilla, Andy Cohn, Donn Berdahl. A — Not reported.