‘Bows get ‘punked’ by North Texas

There was a connection to be drawn between the moth that flitted freely about the Stan Sheriff Court, with public address man Billy V in hot pursuit, and Hawaii attempting to chase down the dynamic North Texas team that darted off to a big lead on Sunday.

Billy V eventually caught the moth, but Hawaii never came close to running down North Texas. The Rainbow Warriors absorbed a 68-51 beatdown in the de facto championship game of the Outrigger Resorts Rainbow Classic.

The moth antics were probably the highlight of the night if you were a UH fan, as the home team was held to its lowest point output since its memorably woeful performance against Illinois State in the 2016 Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic first round (won 71-45 by the Redbirds). Sunday, the output was mostly due to the anemic first half, after which it trailed 35-17 and was shooting 20.8 percent.

Billy V is on moth patrol in the SSC #HawaiiMBB pic.twitter.com/BZtnuavQB0

— Brian McInnis (@Brian_McInnis) November 12, 2018

The Mean Green out-meaned and out-greened UH. They had an extra bounce in their step and an extra step to their drives. It was a troubling first test against a team with decidedly superior athleticism (which tournament MVP Ryan Woolridge showcased with an ambitious dunk attempt over the UH frontcourt early on; he missed off the back rim, but the message was sent). UNT got to the rim with impunity.

“We were outclassed in every area,” UH coach Eran Ganot said. “I don’t know if we’ve had basically a 40-minute beatdown like we had today.”

On the way into the locker room at halftime, he told Spectrum Sports that his team was being “punked.” In the postgame media interview roundtable session, he doubled down on that assessment.

“They completely out-toughed us. When we missed some decent looks early, it affected the rest of our offense,” he said. “Then we got back to something we hadn’t seen in a while, where we were hesitant, passing up shots, not talking. Clearly not defending.”

There was one guy in house that you know wouldn’t have taken the beatdown lying down. He was even in his jersey.

Somebody check if the guy in the Roderick Bobbitt jersey has any eligibility. Oh wait, that’s Roderick Bobbitt. pic.twitter.com/ILj36UadDu

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— Brian McInnis (@Brian_McInnis) November 12, 2018

Alas, UNT, which features several athletic players in the 6-2 to 6-4 range, sped off to leads of 7-0, 12-2 and 17-4.

“We were getting good shots in the first half, we just weren’t making them. We can’t control that,” UH point guard Drew Buggs said. “What we can control is our energy and our effort on the defensive end. We didn’t bring it today, and they kicked us in the mouth to start the game. It was hard to catch up because they’re a good team and they stayed disciplined the whole game.”

UNT, the defending CBI champion, won the points off turnovers battle handily, with 26 points scored off UH’s 17 giveaways to 10 scored for UH off 11 UNT turnovers.

“The biggest part of defense is executing your game plan. You can be aggressive and foul and that’s what we didn’t do, for the most part,” UNT coach Grant McCasland said. “They got to the bonus eventually, and that’s going to happen against a good offensive team like Hawaii. Give them credit, too, because we really had to know exact assignments because they run their offense so well. But, what we did was we made sure that they got late clock situations, and the people (they) had with the ball in their hands, we knew what they were going to do. And our guys paid attention. They were prepared, and we were physical and made plays when we needed to, in the right spot.”

Meanwhile, Ganot said, “Our point of attack (defense) wasn’t very good, I’ll start there. We couldn’t keep them in front. And our team defense was atrocious. I mean, I don’t know very often since we’ve been here that we had guys go one-bounce dunk with no second line of support. We’ve never done that, and that’s really disappointing.”

Forward Zigmars Raimo was fronted and turned back on some occasions, but kept coming and finished with team highs of 14 points and seven rebounds. He and Jack Purchase were named to the all-tournament team.

Outrigger Resorts Rainbow Classic all-tournament team
Ryan Woolridge, North Texas (MVP)
Umoja Gibson, North Texas
Zachary Simmons, North Texas
Zigmars Raimo, Hawaii
Jack Purchase, Hawaii
Marcus Shaver Jr., Portland

Sheriff Drammeh still did not venture from the end of the UH bench. You’d think he’d be back for next Sunday’s home game against Northern Arizona, but we’ll see.