DAVIS, Calif. » The ball was right there. Negus Webster-Chan was chasing after it in the final minute on Saturday, Hawaii down but not quite out yet in its game at Big West Conference front-runner UC Davis. But in swooped Darius Graham.
Graham beat Webster-Chan to the ball and secured the possession for the Aggies. Time eventually ran out on the short-handed Rainbow Warriors, who suffered a 74-67 defeat, dropping UH (18-11, 6-7 Big West) into a sixth-place tie with Cal Poly with three regular-season games remaining.
"I’m pretty proud of my guys tonight," Hawaii coach Benjy Taylor said. "I don’t usually say that after a loss."
That was due in part to a gutsy performance by the eight players Taylor had on the floor. Leading scorer and rebounder Aaron Valdes missed the game with an ankle injury and flu-like symptoms after playing on Thursday in a 15-point loss at UC Irvine. He had missed the previous game against Cal State Fullerton. Fourth-leading scorer Isaac Fleming missed his second consecutive game with an ankle sprain. And seventh-leading scorer Mike Thomas aggravated his own ankle injury on Thursday and had to sit out.
The result was Hawaii’s first back-to back losses of the season.
Of course, the Aggies had little sympathy for the ‘Bows’ ailments. They remembered all too well Hawaii’s 84-76 win the last time the teams played, back on Oahu on Jan. 22. On Saturday, UC Davis (21-4, 11-1) got out to an early lead thanks to a 19-6 run in the first half. Tyler Les performed like a coach’s son (which he is, as his father, Jim, is the Aggies’ coach), burying five 3-pointers during the spurt. Tyler Les finished with nine 3-pointers and a game-high, season-high and career-high 28 points.
"He made nine, and only three were defensive breakdowns," Taylor said. "He’s just a great shooter."
Taylor’s players were a little harder on themselves.
"We just need to close out on a guy we know is a great shooter," said Stefan Jankovic, who scored 21 points — a career high for the second straight game.
Added Garrett Nevels, "We didn’t make him uncomfortable." Or, as Quincy Smith put it, "We just played bad D. We’ve got to stop the 3."
That run gave UC Davis a 28-15 lead with 7 minutes, 27 seconds left in the half. Then, the Warriors awoke. They went on a 24-8 run the rest of the half, with Nevels (19 points) hitting a 3-pointer with 27 seconds remaining to give Hawaii a 39-36 lead at the break.
"We were just playing better," said Smith, who grew up down the road in the Bay Area and graduated from Deer Valley High School in Antioch. "We were getting stops. When we made that run, we were getting shots in the paint."
Said Aggies coach Jim Les, "That’s a good team that can score quickly."
The strong play continued into the second half. After some early back-and-forth, the Rainbow Warriors went on an 8-0 run to take a 51-41 lead three minutes into the half. UC Davis answered with a 10-0 run of its own to tie it up. Dyrbe Enos buried a 3-pointer to push the lead back up to 61-55 with 7:56 to go. But that would go down as the high-water mark.
Tyler Les nailed another 3-pointer to make it 61-58, was fouled by Niko Filipovich, and made the free throw for a four-point play. Neal Monson’s layup tied it up. And Les (who else?) gave UC Davis the lead for good with his final 3-pointer with 4:53 to go.
The end of the game was summed up when Jankovic tried to dunk in a follow shot with just under a minute left, Hawaii trailing 72-65. The ball hit the rim and flew high over the basket and out of bounds. Jankovic went down, grabbing his left foot. He got up and limped back down the court —just as the Rainbow Warriors are limping home. They have three games left to position themselves for the conference tournament in Anaheim. They hope to be healthy by then.
