KAUNAKAKAI, MOLOKAI » A day later, the numbers are just as staggering, and the actions of two incensed players no less puzzling.
The Hawaii men’s basketball team hit 60 percent of its shots and scored its most points in nearly 19 years in a 104-93 defeat of Chaminade on Saturday night at Molokai High School’s gym, "The Barn."
Senior captains Jace Tavita and Vander Joaquim ensured the Friendly Isle locals would remember the game for other reasons. They were key figures in instigating tensions early and late in a game the Rainbow Warriors (5-3) controlled most of the way with interior scoring complemented by 11 3-pointers.
Prior to flying back to Oahu on Sunday, players and coaches from both teams were left scratching their heads about unnecessary altercations six minutes into the game and with less than four minutes left. In the latter, Tavita was ejected during a heated exchange following a Joaquim dunk.
Chaminade would not be bullied by its taller neighbor and, after falling behind by 20, made it a close game late, thanks to 16 total 3s.
"(Molokai fans) got to see some high scoring on both sides … and they got to see the ugly side of it, where players are losing their heads, doing things they shouldn’t be doing," said UH assistant coach Brandyn Akana, a Molokai native. "I mean, it’s competition … we knew they were going to be very amped up for this game, any D-II team playing a D-I team."
Head coach Gib Arnold was glad to see his team snap out of its two-game offensive funk — the ‘Bows shot in the low 30s in losses to UNLV and Pepperdine — and showed some toughness going into a stacked Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic field starting Saturday against Miami (Fla.).
But the coach, clearly peeved at his players during the most chaotic moments, said afterward he’d wait 48 hours to decide whether to mete out any possible discipline.
"Yeah I was (disappointed)," Arnold said. "I think you gotta play this game with passion, with emotion, or it’s not worth playing. The passion part I love. It has a limit, though. You don’t cross that. That happened. Jace Tavita made a couple mistakes, and as my leader and as my captain, that’s unacceptable."
Meanwhile, a near-capacity Barn crowd saw UH put up a point total it never accomplished in all the years since the Stan Sheriff Center opened in 1994. A night after taking a close loss to Cedarville on Oahu, Texas-slaying Chaminade (3-7) was game for run-and-gun fun, too, hitting on a jaw-dropping 16 of 35 3-point attempts (45 percent) before taking its sixth straight loss.
"The fast-paced nature, that was great," Arnold said. "That’s the way you’d hope basketball would be played. It was up-tempo, exciting, we were exchanging blows, guys were playing with a lot of intensity. Give Chaminade all kinds of credit, my gosh, I don’t know if I’ve seen a team shoot like that."
The offensive showcase in a "goodwill" game in front of a new segment of fans — it was the first official UH game ever on Molokai — would have been a remarkable enough story.
But more was in store in this wild one. Much, much more.
In the first episode, Tavita and Chaminade forward Kevin Hu went up for an airborne ball. There was plenty of midair contact, and Tavita shoved Hu sharply and went after him right after the two landed. Players got between and things calmed down for the time being. The two were assessed offsetting technicals.
Chaminade fell behind by 20 with 14 minutes to play — but as in each of UH’s four previous wins this season, a large lead was not safe. The ‘Swords kept bombing away in their five-man motion system and rallied to cut it to five with six minutes left.
Brandon Jawato and Christian Standhardinger (team highs of 20 points and 12 rebounds) ended the immediate threat with baskets sandwiched around a Chaminade turnover.
Later, though, with the game nearly sealed for UH up 93-81 with 4:18 to play, Joaquim threw down a contested dunk in transition and drew a foul from Silverswords guard De’Andre Haskins. It appeared to be a clean play, but Joaquim stared him down and approached the fallen Haskins under the basket immediately afterward, leading to more jawing and shoving once the Chaminade player got up. To make matters worse for UH, Tavita left the team bench and entered the fray, escalating the fracas.
Joaquim and Tavita were given technicals. Haskins, who scored a team-best 21, didn’t appear to react.
"He dunked on me, as some may say," Haskins said. "He was hyped about his dunk, and he just started going off, and everybody else started going off. Heat of the moment type things."
"I was just a little bit hyped from the foul," Joaquim said. "(I) shouldn’t have made eye contact, should have went to the other side. We talked afterwards, apologized to each other. We were just playing. It’s part of the game."
