A little inner strength and a lot of Gytis Nemeiksa and Marcus Greene added up to the Hawaii basketball team’s 78-61 victory over Charlotte in Sunday’s opening round of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.
A crowd of 2,844 saw Nemeikas match a career high with 24 points and Greene contribute 22 as the Rainbow Warriors advanced into today’s semifinal against Nebraska.
After going 5-for-8 outside the arc in the first half, the ’Bows missed all seven of their 3-point attempts after the intermission. But the ’Bows relied on a relentless inside game, hitting 61% of their 2-point shots, in amassing 40 paint points. They rebounded 10 of their missed shots.
Nemeiksa, who transferred from Xavier in August, showed his skill set after the 49ers’ whittled a once 21-point deficit to 68-55 with 5:35 to go. After UH wing Ryan Rapp misfired on a 3 attempt, Nemeiksa grabbed the rebound and scored on a layup. He then rebounded Charlotte guard Jaeshon Thomas’ missed shot and eventually assisted on Jerome Palm’s jumper. Nemeikas had seven rebounds — four off the offensive glass — drew five fouls without committing any, and made a steal.
Greene was able to score on drives or jumpers late in the shot clock, even with a raised hand partially obstructing his view of the rim. Greene, who entered hitting 20.6% of his 3s, made all three of shots from behind the arc in the first half.
“I’m pretty comfortable taking shots in those situations,” Greene said of buzzer beaters. “At the same time, we’ve got a bunch of guys that can take shots at the end of the shot clock — Gytis, Tanner (Christensen), Kody (Williams), Ryan. We’ve got a good amount of guys ready to knock it down when it counts.”
In practices this week, the ’Bows emphasized starting strong. They have trailed or were tied at the first media timeout in seven of their first eight games against Division I opponents.
“I think we were, like, really ready for this game,” Nemeiksa said. “We had a good practice before that. When you’re throwing that punch first, it’s easier to play.”
Nemeiksa’s hook shot and Greene’s 3 from the left wing staked the ’Bows to a 5-0 lead. They never trailed.
The ’Bows also used an aggressive man-to-man defense to disrupt the 49ers’ offensive flow. The 49ers missed their first seven shots out of their half-court offense. Their only points in dissolving into an 11-2 hole came when Nik Graves made a steal and then went coast-to-coast for a lay-in.
“We had the mindset to deliver the first punch,” Greene said, “and come out with energy and come out with aggression. … The first four minutes, come out and give them a good punch, keep the pedal on the metal.”
Graves said: “It was the first game of the tournament against, really, the home team, and they came out with a lot of juice. It’s no excuse. We’ve been here a few days now. We’ve just got to be better.”
The 49ers made several pushes, but could not get the stops when the ’Bows stormed the low post on drives and offensive boards.
“I thought our preparation was good,” Charlotte coach Aaron Fearne said. “It’s a good Hawaii team. They played some good basketball against some really good teams. … They did some really good things, which we struggled to deal with, and struggled to keep them off the glass. Their size really hurt us. They made some really big plays in the first half.”
Later in the first half, the ’Bows used a 10-0 run to expand a six-point lead to 37-21. Nemeiksa buried two 3s and Greene parlayed a steal into a dunk during that surge.
HAWAII 78, CHARLOTTE 61
49ers (6-5)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Braswell 26 4-7 0-0 2 0 1 9
Reiber 21 0-2 0-0 2 1 3 0
Metskhvarishvili12 0-2 0-0 1 0 0 0
Graves 32 2-11 9-11 6 0 3 13
Thomas 27 6-10 2-3 3 1 2 16
Rosado 17 4-7 0-1 0 3 2 8
Folkes 17 1-3 1-2 2 2 0 3
Rolf 19 2-5 0-0 3 0 2 5
Blackmon 14 0-3 2-2 0 0 3 2
Szymczyk 7 2-3 0-0 1 0 0 5
Bradford 1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
TEAM 1
TOTALS 200 21-53 14-19 21 7 16 61
RAINBOW WARRIORS (7-3)
MIN FG-A FT-A R A PF PTS
Nemeiksa 27 10-14 2-3 7 1 0 24
Christensen 19 2-6 1-1 8 0 4 5
Williams 20 0-2 0-0 3 3 4 0
Greene 31 8-15 3-6 4 3 4 22
Rapp 32 3-5 2-2 3 3 3 8
Beattie 21 4-6 1-1 3 1 0 9
Palm 16 2-4 0-0 1 1 3 4
Jacobs 11 0-3 0-0 4 0 1 0
Rouhliadeff 12 3-4 0-0 1 0 0 6
Hunkin-Claytor 5 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 0
Economou 1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
Robeson 1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 0
TEAM 3
TOTALS 200 32-59 9-13 37 13 19 78
Key — min: minutes played; fg-a: field goals
made-attempted; ft-a: free throws made-attempted; r: rebounds; a: assists; pf: personal fouls; pts: total points.
Halftime — Hawaii 44, Charlotte 31
3-point goals — Charlotte 5-14 (Thomas
2-2, Braswell 1-2, Rolf 1-3, Szymczyk 1-2,
Reiber 0-2, Graves 0-2, Blackmon 0-1).
Hawaii 5-15 (Greene 3-7, Nemeiska 2-4,
Williams 0-1, Rapp 0-1, Jacobs 0-2).
Steals — Charlotte 4 (Graves 3, Reiber).
Hawaii 3 (Nemeiksa, Beattie, Rouhliadeff).
Blocked shots — Charlotte 3 (Braswell 2,
Reiber). Hawaii none. Turnovers — Charlotte 7 (Folkes 2, Reiber, Metskhvarishvili,
Rosado, Rolf, Blackmon). Hawaii 11 (Christensen 3, Williams 3, Rapp 2, Beattie 2,
Rouhliadeff) Technical fouls — Charlotte 1
(Rosado). Officials — Nate Harris, Amy
Bonner, Donn Berdahl. A — 5,049.
