There were so many breathless moments in UC Riverside’s Big West Tournament quarterfinal game against Hawaii on Thursday night that it was hard for the players to remember the sequence.
Third-seeded Hawaii will remember that it won, 68-67, to advance to the semifinals for the first time since 2016. The sixth-seeded Highlanders will remember how they were a few minutes away from winning before it slipped away at Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada.
Hawaii coach Evan Ganot put the game into perspective for all of the Big West teams this week with a forward spin on the someone-has-to-lose refrain.
“UC Riverside is great. All the games so far have been closed,” he said. “Someone has to advance.”
“It seemed like the whole game was up and down for the lead,” UCR coach Mike Magpayo said. “We really enjoy these types of games, it’s just painful when they don’t go your way.
“That’s basketball. That’s life.”
UCR (16-12) had its third straight winning season and will replay the way the season ended for a while. In their last three games, the Highlanders lost a double-overtime game to UC Santa Barbara and the regular-season finale to conference champion Long Beach State by a point in overtime. And now this.
UC Riverside led 63-62 with 4:12 left on Thursday night. Over the next minute, Callum McRae and Flynn Cameron had layups flirt with the basket before they fell away. Hawaii’s Junior Madut hit a driving layup to take the lead, and teammate Bernardo da Silva blocked a shot on the ensuing possession.
Jerome Desrosiers grabbed an offensive rebound off a miss and scored to put the Rainbow Warriors up, 66-63. Wil Tattersall made a basket to get UCR within one with 1:54 left, but over the next minute, the Highlanders had two good looks that didn’t go down.
They fouled with 16 seconds left and Madut hit both shots to make it a three-point game again. Hawaii (17-10) fouled Dominick Pickett with 6.1 seconds left. I have made both shots to get the margin back to one.
Madut was fouled on the ensuing inbounds play, and he missed the front end of a one-and-one. The Highlanders got the ball up court to Tattersall, but his shot from him from the top of the key was off target.
Zyon Pullin had 23 points on 8-of-14 shooting and five assists to pace UCR, while Cameron added 17 (going 5 for 9 from 3-point range) and Pickett had 13 (3 for 4 from behind the arc). UCR finished 9 for 19 from 3-point range.
Madut finished with 17 points and eight rebounds for Hawaii, and Desrosiers had 14 points and 12 rebounds. Amoro Lado added 12 points and da Silva had nine rebounds and four blocked shots.
The remarkable stat Thursday was rebounding. Hawaii had a 41-27 advantage overall and 13 offensive rebounds. Those second-chance points were key to the Warriors overcoming a 10-point deficit in the first half and twice coming back from five-point deficits in the final six minutes.
“We talked about that at halftime, that we had to do a better job rebounding, but we really didn’t make the adjustments we needed,” Cameron said.
The other notable stat was Hawaii having a considerable advantage when it came to fans in the arena, the Warriors’ contingent making it seem more like a Hawaii home game than a neutral site.
“We won our game at Hawaii this year, so I thought we’d handle it,” Magpayo said. “I think we did, but their fans clearly helped them.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism