Hawaii’s road in the Big West tournament will be decided Saturday at Cal State Fullerton.
RAINBOW WARRIOR BASKETBALL
In Fullerton, Calif.
>> Who: Hawaii (19-12, 7-8 Big West) vs. Cal State Fullerton (9-21, 1-14)
>> When: 3 p.m. Saturday
>> TV: None
>> Radio: KKEA
>> Series: UH leads 7-2 |
The Rainbow Warriors will be the No. 5 or 6 seed in the eight-team tournament at the Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif., starting Thursday. By beating the last-place Titans — who are already out of the running to qualify for the tourney — UH assures itself the fifth seed and will face No. 4 Long Beach State in the quarterfinals.
UH (19-12, 7-8) can still be No. 5 if it loses at Titan Gym, as long as UC Riverside (7-8) also falls at home to Long Beach State in its finale. But a UH loss and a Riverside win would make Benjy Taylor’s group No. 6 and they would face UC Irvine or UC Santa Barbara in the 3-6 game. Both those teams swept UH this season.
"After this game … everything is out the window. It’s win or go home," Taylor said Friday in a phone interview from California. "We want to get a win going into that tournament, remain healthy and try to make a run at it."
UH arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday night and got in a practice at CSF on Friday. The Rainbows seek a stronger showing than in their 98-90 loss to UCSB on Wednesday, the most points they’ve allowed since joining the Big West in 2012.
Taylor said the team’s preparation at the 4,000-seat Titan Gym was "in a lot of ways our best practice of the year. Very vocal, guys were communicating, energetic, bouncy. We’re in a good place right now."
He added that he thought the team was its healthiest since December; all players, including guard Isaac Fleming (sprained ankle), were a go. But the coach cautioned his team about Fullerton coming out with an edge on its senior night. He’s expecting four of CSF’s five seniors to start.
"This is a very dangerous game," Taylor said.
The Rainbows routed the Titans 81-61 at the Stan Sheriff Center on Feb. 14 behind a then-career-high 18 points from Negus Webster-Chan on 6-for-12 shooting from long range. CSF was without its best player, senior guard Alex Harris (15.8 ppg), who had a high thigh contusion but has since returned.
It’s been a difficult season for CSF and coach Dedrique Taylor. The Titans (9-21, 1-14) failed to qualify for the Big West tourney for just the fourth time in the event’s 40-year history.
The Titans competed evenly with Irvine most of the way on Thursday but fell apart late in a 68-62 loss, their eighth straight defeat. Guard Lanerryl Johnson, who scored 23 against UH, had 21 in the loss to the Anteaters.
