Cal State Bakersfield absorbed Hawaii’s best shots and then fought back for a 76-64 basketball victory at the Icardo Center on the CSUB campus.
A senior-night crowd of 1,158 saw the Roadrunners overcome seven-point deficits in each half to keep alive their postseason hopes.
The Roadrunners moved into seventh place at 8-12 in the 11-team Big West. Now at 7-12, the Rainbow Warriors fell into an eighth-place tie with Cal Poly. Only eight teams qualify for next week’s Big West Tournament in Henderson, Nev.
While CSUB has completed its regular season, the ’Bows have two chances on Saturday to continue their season. The ’Bows will qualify for the tournament if they upset Cal State Northridge (13-6 Big West) or if Cal Poly (7-12) loses to Long Beach State (3-16). CSUN won the previous meeting against UH 83-60 in Honolulu.
The ’Bows could have clinched a berth if they had beaten the Roadrunners. But the ’Bows could not find enough creases in the Roadrunners’ 2-3 zone, contain Jemel Jones’ creative scoring, grab timely rebounds, or cut off point guard CJ Hardy’s drives to the rim.
“All this year, we haven’t responded when we get hit in the mouth,” UH coach Eran Ganot said in a postgame radio interview. “All they did was turn up the heat on the pressure. We had 13 turnovers, they had five. I thought we missed a lot of shots around the rim, some open 3s. That can’t happen. We survive those because we (usually) defend and rebound. We didn’t defend very well. We definitely didn’t blockout at all in key places.”
Late in the second half, CSUB center Fidelis Okereke missed on a drive, but then scrambled for the offensive rebound. When Hardy missed a free throw, Jones sneaked his way for the putback.
“We kept giving them second chances,” Ganot said. “At the minimum, we’ve been a good rebounding team. We have to be. We weren’t good enough tonight.”
The Roadrunners edged the ’Bows on the boards 36-35, including 14-11 on the offensive glass.
The ’Bows scored the game’s first seven points and led 37-33 at the half. But the Roadrunners went on a 17-4 run for a 58-50 lead with 9:22 to play.
The ’Bows had a chance to cut into a 70-64 deficit. But Harry Rouhliadeff and Ryan Rapp missed back-to-back, 3-point attempts, the latter with 2:18 left. UH hit just 5-for-21 from 3, including 1-for-13 in the second half.
Hardy and Jones each hit two free throws to move the Roadrunners out of reach.
Jones finished with 29 points on 12-for-22 shooting. Jones got going when he parlayed an inbound pass into a 3, hit a second-chance trey, and turned two UH turnovers into run-out baskets.
Marvin McGhee III nailed four 3s and contributed 16 points for the Roadrunners.
And Hardy took over the point, then took control of the offensive attack. Hardy scored 17 of his 19 points after the intermission, including two run-outs for dunks. He also drew five second-half fouls that he parlayed into 7-for-8, free-throw shooting.
“The point guard really hurt us,” Ganot said. “Hard to the rim at will. Got some turnovers.”
UH forward Gytis Nemeikas came off the bench to score 21 points on 8-for-10 shooting, with most of the shots launched from the elbow.
But the ’Bows missed too many point-blank shots, which led to hesitancy. “Then we started passing up shots,” Ganot said.
BIG WEST MEN
Conference Overall
W L Pct. GB W L
UC San Diego 17 2 .895 — 27 4
UC Irvine 16 3 .842 1 26 5
CS Northridge 13 6 .684 4 21 9
UC Riverside 13 6 .684 4 20 11
UCSB 11 8 .579 6 19 11
UC Davis 9 10 .474 8 15 15
CSU Bakersfield 8 12 .400 91
⁄2 14 18
Hawaii 7 12 .368 10 15 15
Cal Poly 7 12 .368 10 13 18
Long Beach St. 3 16 .158 14 7 24
CS Fullerton 1 18 .053 16 6 25
Thursday
Cal State Bakersfield 76, Hawaii 64
UC Irvine 88, UC Davis 59
Cal Poly 100, Cal State Fullerton 61
UC San Diego 70, Long Beach State 63
UC Riverside 94, Cal State Northridge 79
Saturday
Hawaii at Cal State Northridge, 3 p.m.
UC San Diego at UC Davis
Cal Poly at Long Beach State
UC Riverside at Cal State Fullerton
UC Irvine at UC Santa Barbara
End regular season
CAL STATE BAKERSFIELD 76, HAWAII 64
RAINBOW WARRIORS (15-15 7-12 Big West)
NO. PLAYER MIN FG-A 3PT FT-A O-DREB TREB PF A TO BLK STL PTS
32 Christensen 33 6-9 0-1 0-0 3-4 7 2 2 2 0 0 12
02 Beattie 33 3-8 1-2 4-4 1-3 4 0 0 2 0 0 11
30 Hunkin-Claytor 35 2-7 1-3 0-0 0-2 2 2 8 3 0 1 5
22 Rapp 20 1-7 0-3 2-2 3-5 8 1 0 3 0 0 4
14 Rouhliadeff 14 1-4 0-1 0-0 0-2 2 2 1 0 0 0 2
05 Nemeiksa 26 8-10 3-5 2-2 1-4 5 4 1 2 1 1 21
20 Palm 7 2-2 0-0 1-2 1-0 1 0 0 1 0 0 5
34 Jacobs 23 1-6 0-5 2-2 1-2 3 2 2 0 1 0 4
04 Greene 9 0-3 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0
TEAM 1-2 3
Totals 200 24-56 5-21 11-12 11-24 35 14 15 13 2 2 64
Percentages 42.9 23.8 91.7
ROADRUNNERS (14-18, 8-12 Big West)
NO. PLAYER MIN FG-A 3PT FT-A O-DREB TREB PF A TO BLK STL PTS
Jones 33 12-22 2-5 3-3 1-4 5 2 2 1 0 1 29
Hardy 33 6-11 0-1 7-8 1-5 6 2 3 1 0 1 19
McGhee III 36 6-15 4-9 0-0 0-3 3 1 1 0 0 0 16
Okereke 29 3-7 0-0 2-4 4-2 6 1 1 1 1 1 8
Mark 18 0-1 0-0 0-0 2-3 5 3 1 1 1 1 0
Clark 11 1-2 0-0 0-0 1-1 2 1 0 0 0 0 2
Alexander 7 1-2 0-0 0-0 1-1 2 0 2 0 0 1 2
Stephenson 19 0-5 0-1 0-0 3-2 5 0 0 1 0 2 0
McGhee IV 7 0-1 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0
Waller 7 0-0 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 1 0 0 1 0
TEAM 1-1 2
Totals 200 29-66 6-17 12-15 14-22 36 11 11 5 2 8 76
Percentages 43.9 35.3 80.0
Halftime — Hawaii 37, Cal State Riverside 33
Technical fouls — Glen Mayberry, Brad Gaston, John Hampton. Officials — . A — 1,158.
