Rainbow Warrior basketball: ‘Bows win Valentine’s rock fight

Most of the Valentine’s Day match between Hawaii and Cal Poly was a battle only a mother could love.

A typical rock fight between the teams ensued basically right after tipoff Thursday night. But as has been the case in most of the Mustangs-Rainbow Warriors battles of late, the ‘Bows had more rocks in their satchel, resulting in a 75-54 Rainbow Warriors runaway.

It was billed as the night that Jack Purchase would likely own the Hawaii career 3-point record all to himself. Instead, a feisty Purchase ably played decoy most of the night, attempting only three shots (and just two 3s, making one to tie Zane Johnson at 180).

Amazingly, UH attempted only three 3-pointers in the first half — they’ve been tossing up nearly 45 percent of their shots from behind the arc this season, a huge part of their identity — and still led 26-19 at halftime.

A big part of that was the Mustangs spending most of the night face-guarding and ball-denying Purchase on the wings. Purchase, when not mixing it up with a few of the Mustangs during dead ball situations in both halves, rebounded and moved well.

“There may have been some frustration there with Jack. I think his ability to spread the floor for us was just huge,” coach Eran Ganot said. “Is it the first time (to that extent this year)? No, because he’s such a shooter AND passer. But he did a great job overall in a game of, letting things happen. And that’s why other guys had cracks. It’s going to be a different guy every night.”

Indeed, the UH bench did its thing (a 38-7 advantage), led by freshman center Dawson Carper. Carper bulled his way to a career-high 15 points on 7-for-8 shooting in 15 minutes. That matched the output of the Mustangs’ top scorer on the night, Marcellus Garrick.

Point guard Drew Buggs quietly tied his career high of 17 on 6-for-8 shooting. He had the screen and roll game working effectively with Carper, especially, among his eight assists. Talk about dishing out some hard candy on V-Day: UH had 18 dimes as a team, twice its turnover count.

“Dawson, he does a great job of rolling, our bigs do a great job of rolling,” Buggs said. “I tell him, ‘set good screens for me, and I’ll find you if you’re open. Just keep rolling. If I don’t hit you, don’t give up on your rolls, no matter what. Just roll every time.’ Eventually teams are going to have to stay home on our shooters or they’re going to have to take away the roll. Today they stayed home on our shooters, and it left the roll guys open. Dawson, 7-for-8, that’s big time.”

Rarely was it pretty, but it was effective on this night. Cal Poly coach Joe Callero said on Mustangs radio afterward he’d have to rethink how his team defends the paint in the rematch in San Luis Obispo in a little more than a week.

Said Carper of the expected physical battle with the blue-collar Mustangs, “It’s stuff we’ve seen before, so the coaches prepped us for it well. It’s going to be a physical game, we gotta come out and be ready. First five minutes, they sort of came out and hit us in the mouth a little bit, I knew when I got in I had to be more physical and be ready for that. And I just had to make sure I went up strong and didn’t back down to the bigs’ physicality they had inside.”

In the end, it was on third-place UH (15-9, 6-4 Big West) to put away a last-place Mustangs team (5-18, 1-9) that’s struggled increasingly in recent seasons and now really does only one thing well. UH was better there, too, turning it over nine times to Poly’s 11.

Finally, Purchase cashed in on 3-pointer No. 180 with a little over four minutes to play and received a big cheer. By then, the rest of the ‘Bows were feeling it from downtown; Leland Green canned a couple to help put the game away when Poly crept within nine.

Congrats @jackpurchase6! With this shot, tied the all time @HawaiiMBB record with 180 made 3's! Highlights and reaction from Hawaii's 75-54 win over Cal Poly tonight on @KITV4 Sports #GoBows pic.twitter.com/ajeDIHxM5g

— Brandi Higa (@bhiga12) February 15, 2019

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Here’s a few more shots from the night: