Hawaii basketball team rally late to beat Cal Poly

Down players and down on the SimpliFi Arena jumbo scoreboard, the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team willed its way to Thursday night’s 63-54 victory over Cal Poly.

A crowd of 2,303 saw the short-handed Rainbow Warriors go on a 19-5 closing run to vaporize a 49-44 deficit to improve to 14-9 overall and 8-4 in the Big West.

“Just guts,” UH coach Eran Ganot said of the comeback. “It wasn’t going to be pretty, and it certainly wasn’t pretty. In the biggest moments of the game, the guys played their best. That’s what you ask for, what you need. It’s hard to do it. Credit to them. They did it.”

The ’Bows were without two starters. Noel Coleman, who suffered an orbital fracture in Saturday’s loss to UC Irvine, will not play again the rest of the season. Coleman is leading the ’Bows in scoring (14.8 points per game) and 3-point accuracy (44.1%).

Kamaka Hepa, a 6-foot-10 wing, did not play because of a family matter on the mainland. The ’Bows’ hope is Hepa will return in time for Saturday’s home finale against Cal State Bakersfield.

Without Coleman and Hepa, the ’Bows opened with guard Junior Madut at the three and JoVon McClanahan and Amoro Lado in the backcourt.

But that combination would change several times as the lead seesawed.

In the second half, the Mustangs found success with 5-10 guard Camren Pierce slicing into the paint for layups, lay-ins, and short jumpers.

“They were hurting us on the high ball screen,” said UH associate head coach John Montgomery, who serves as defensive coordinator. “We made the adjustment, I think, with 10 minutes to go to start showing on the ball screen, which means we’re giving up more help with the big. I thought it changed (Pierce’s) looks, so he wasn’t able to get downhill to the basket and score.”

As part of the defensive coverage, the ’Bows down-sized their lineup, with 6-8 Jerome Desrosiers playing the five and 6-6 Beon Riley sliding to the four. With the ball-screen drives cut off, the Mustangs looked to 6-8 Ali Koroma for offense. Desrosiers, a 6-8 power forward, was able to frustrate Koroma.

“Jerome’s one of the strongest guys on our team,” Montgomery said. “I think he should be up there for defensive player of the year. We feel good when he’s on their best player. We knew they were going to Koroma because he is their best player, and Jerome did a great job.”

A key sequence came when Koroma was fouled, and hit one of two free throws to tie it at 54 with 1:48 to play.

Later, the Mustangs worked to Koroma, who was making a back-back-back move against Desrosiers in the low post.

“He’s really strong, really physical,” Desrosiers said. “You have to use his strength against him a little bit. He fell over in the post. I kind of pulled the chair on him to see what he would do. You can’t always play physical.”

Koroma lost possession of the ball, the ’Bows sprinted down court, and Desrosiers buried a wide-open, tiebreaking 3 with 1:16 left. UH would not trail again.

“I came down, I didn’t know where (Koroma) was, and I shot it with confidence,” Desrosiers said.

Cal Poly coach John Smith said: “Unfortunately for (Koroma), he fell on a post-up and they came down and hit the wide-open 3, and it changed the trajectory of the game.”

The eighth loss in a row dropped the Mustangs to 5-20 and 1-12 in the Big West.

“I’m proud of the way our guys fought after being down, but this has been the story of the season,” Smith said. “If the game was played for 30 minutes, we’d be 20-5 instead of 5-20. Unfortunately, it’s played for 40 minutes, and we’ve got to find a way to be stronger down the stretch.”