Paint-thinning aggression and a relentless double-guard attack added up to UC Riverside’s 82-76 victory over Hawaii in SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
A Thursday night crowd of 2,354 saw the Rainbow Warriors lose for the eighth time in 10 games to fall to 14-14 overall and 6-11 in the Big West. Coupled with Cal State Bakersfield’s buzzer-beating defeat of Long Beach State, the ’Bows dropped to eighth place. Eight teams qualify for the Big West Tournament in Henderson, Nev., in two weeks.
“We’ve got three games left,” UH co-captain Ryan Rapp said. “I still believe in this group. Everybody in the locker room still believes in this group, that we can do it. We’ve just got to keep battling and fight through this adversity. I think we’re going to come back out better on the other side.”
Last month in Riverside, the ’Bows dominated the paint, navigated the presses and traps, and relatively contained 6-foot guard Barrington Hargress, the Highlanders’ high-volume shooter. In practices this week, UCR coach Mike Magpayo implored the Highlanders to attack the lane on drives and, on defense, slide a second and third defender to pester UH center Tanner Christensen.
Christensen picked up two offensive fouls early and, while he returned later, he logged only 5 minutes, 6 seconds in the first half. Christensen, who was assessed his third and fourth fouls in the second half, finished with eight points on 2-for-4 shooting.
UCR forward Kaleb Smith countered with 14 points, six coming on two 3-point shots.
“We had a tough week of practice,” Smith said. “Coach (Magpayo) let us know we needed to be physical, especially myself. Coming into the game, we had the mentality we needed to punch first. Everybody was on board with that mentally. We came out and we were aggressive. I felt we won the paint battle.”
The Highlanders scored 40 points in the paint — the same as the ’Bows’ — on 61% inside shooting. But several of the Highlanders’ buckets came on drives from Hargress, who finished with 25 points, and Isaiah Moses, who added 14.
“I was hard on them,” Magpayo said. “We had blown a seven-point lead with 1:40 on the road (against Cal Poly) on Saturday, and we lost our edge for just a second, and we didn’t finish. So all week it was about finishing. We kind of made that a focus of ours and tried to make it hard on them the last 20, 30 minutes of every practice. I think that stuff showed up today. I knew we were going to get their best shot. It’s always a great game.”
An hour ahead of tip-off, UH announced that point guard Kody Williams would be out “indefinitely” after suffering a fracture right wrist during practice earlier in the week. Williams was the key defender against Hargress in the previous meeting between the teams.
“Obviously, it does hurt us a lot without Kody,” Rapp said. “Kody’s probably our best guard defender on our team. Then it’s ‘next man up.’ We can’t think about that anymore. He’s out for the season. … We’ve got to make sure we all defend as a team. We’ve got to come together. I think our effort was better today. But we got killed on one-on-one defense with the guards coming at us. We need to overall step that up.”
Magpayo said a key factor was Moses and Hargress getting into the paint. Magpayo said Hargress often looks for fouls on shots. This time, Magpayo told Hargress to focus on the shot, and not on drawing the foul.
The ’Bows did receive a boost from Gytis Nemeiksa, who emerged from a long offensive slump. In the previous seven games, Nemeiksa averaged 6.7 points on 14.9% shooting. But on Thursday, Nemeiksa scored 11 first-half points on 4-for-6 shooting as the ’Bows took a 36-35 lead into the intermission. Nemeiksa finished with a team-high 17 points.
“I just wanted to bring energy, like the beginning of the season,” Nemeiksa said.
UC RIVERSIDE 82, HAWAII 76
HIGHLANDERS (19-11 12-6 Big West)
NO. PLAYER PTS FG-A 3PT FT-A O-DREB TREB A PF TO BLK STL MIN
2 Smith 14 5-10 2-4 2-2 0-3 3 0 2T 2 0 1 27
3 Moses 14 4-11 2-5 4-5 2-5 7 4 1 1 0 1 29
11 Pickens 9 3-5 0-0 3-4 1-3 4 1 4 2 0 1 22
21 Armotrading 4 1-1 0-0 2-2 0-2 2 0 5 1 0 0 22
24 Hargress 25 9-19 1-3 6-7 0-4 4 2 1 1 0 0 32
1 Davis 0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 2
4 Schulte 4 2-4 0-0 0-0 2-1 3 0 2 0 0 0 16
10 Olabode 8 3-7 2-6 0-0 0-2 2 2 1 0 1 1 26
12 Whitbourn 4 2-2 0-0 0-0 3-1 4 0 0 0 0 0 15
22 Turner 0 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0 0 0 9
TEAM 0-2 2 1
Totals 82 29-60 7-19 17-20 8-23 31 9 16 8 1 4 200
Percentages 48.3 36.8 85.0
RAINBOW WARRIORS (14-14 6-11 Big West)
NO. PLAYER PTS FG-A 3PT FT-A O-DREB TREB A PF TO BLK STL MIN
2 Beattie 7 3-6 1-3 0-0 0-2 2 1 3 2 0 0 28
14 Rouhliadeff 6 3-8 0-3 0-0 0-1 1 0 2 1 0 0 22
22 Rapp 16 6-11 4-6 0-0 0-3 3 0 2 0 0 0 35
30 Hunkin-Claytor 11 5-9 1-3 0-0 1-2 3 5 4 1 0 2 29
32 Christensen 8 2-4 0-1 4-4 2-5 7 2 4 3 0 0 20
4 Greene 4 2-4 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 3 0 2 0 0 14
5 Nemeiksa 17 6-14 1-4 4-4 1-2 3 0 2T 1 0 0 27
20 Palm 2 1-1 0-0 0-0 2-3 5 0 0 1 0 0 8
34 Jacobs 5 2-5 0-3 1-1 1-1 2 0 0 0 0 0 17
TEAM 1-2 3
Totals 76 30-62 7-24 9-9 8-22 30 11 17 11 0 2 200
Percentages 48.4 29.2 100.0
Halftime — Hawaii 36, UC Riverside 35
Technical fouls — UC Riverside 1 (Smith). Hawaii 1 (Nemeiksa). Officials — Chris Hudson, Chance Wallesen, Jacob Hirz. A — 4,229.
BIG WEST MEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
UC San Diego 15 2 .882 — 25 4
UC Irvine 14 3 .824 1 24 5
CS Northridge 12 5 .706 3 20 8
UC Riverside 12 6 .667 31⁄2 19 11
UCSB 11 7 .611 41
2 19 10
UC Davis 9 8 .529 6 15 13
CSU Bakersfield 7 11 .389 81
2 13 17
Hawaii 6 11 .353 9 14 14
Cal Poly 5 12 .294 10 11 18
Long Beach St. 3 14 .176 12 7 22
CS Fullerton 1 16 .059 14 6 23
Thursday
UC Riverside 82, Hawaii 76
CS Bakersfield 88, Long Beach St. 87, OT
UC San Diego 77, Cal State Northridge 71
UC Irvine 76, Cal State Fullerton 51
UC Santa Barbara 96, Cal Poly 77
Saturday
UC Davis at Hawaii, 7 p.m.
Cal State Bakersfield at Cal Poly
UC Santa Barbara at Cal State Northridge
Cal State Fullerton at UC San Diego
Long Beach State at UC Irvine
