An ailing Long Beach State freshman \u2014 6-foot-4 combo guard Gavin Sykes \u2014 administered the pain in an 84-75 victory to spoil Hawaii\u2019s senior night at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.<\/p>\n
A crowd of 5,468 saw the Beach score 24 of the final 39 points to also sabotage the Rainbow Warriors\u2019 opportunity to claim a share of their first regular-season title since 2016.<\/p>\n
UH and UC Irvine entered the final day of the regular season tied atop the Big West. UCI defeated UC Davis to clinch the top seed in next week\u2019s eight-team Big West Tournament in Henderson, Nev. The \u2019Bows missed a chance to share the title when their second-half rally ran out of steam. The Beach already were eliminated from postseason contention.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, tonight was a championship game,\u201d said LBSU coach Chris Acker, a former UH assistant coach. \u201cI told these guys before the game, we\u2019re building a legacy at Long Beach State. These guys are a part of that legacy. And how do you want to be remembered? At the end of the day, people in Long Beach will be talking about this win for a long time. We came in here and did something nobody thought we could get done. Hawaii is obviously an unbelievable team and a formidable championship program. And I\u2019m glad our guys were able to get a win to end our season.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows turned to a full-court press to force six LBSU turnovers in a 4:06 span to turn a double-digit deficit into a 58-55 lead with 11:03 to play.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been in those situations before,\u201d said Sykes, who missed the past Thursday\u2019s game because of an ailment. \u201cI told the guys before they started pressing, we need to get through it and we\u2019ll win this game.\u201d<\/p>\n
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It was 60-all when Peter Majstororic hit a jumper over UH point guard Hunter Erickson with 7:45 to play. Isaiah Lewis\u2019 three-point play extended the Beach\u2019s lead to 65-60.<\/p>\n
Later, Sykes hit three 3s in a 1:11 span to end the suspense.<\/p>\n
Sykes finished with 34 points on 10-for-17 shooting, including 5-for-8 on 3s.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was my seniors and my personal drive to get back out there,\u201d Sykes said of overcoming ailments to return to the lineup. \u201cI wanted to make sure we ended the season strong. It was exactly what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n
UH finished the regular season 22-8 overall and 14-6 in the Big West. As the second seed, the \u2019Bows will have two byes leading to the semifinals in the Big West Tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t get it done to lock up that tie for first place,\u201d Erickson said. \u201cWe got the job done to secure that second seed and get to the semifinals. It is what it is. We\u2019re looking forward to our bigger goal of winning the conference tournament and getting into the NCAA Tournament. That\u2019s our goal. That\u2019s what I came here to do, and I believe we can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows scored the first five points and led 14-9 on Erickson\u2019s left-handed layup with 12:30 to play. But the Beach went on an 8-1 run to go in front 17-15. Although the score would be tied two more times, the Beach never trailed the rest of the half.<\/p>\n
Erickson, who has taken over at the point following Aaron Hunkin-Claytor\u2019s season-ending injury, broke out of recent slump in which he averaged 7.5 points the past eight games. It took only a half for the Erickson to match a season-high 18 points. He finished with 23 points.<\/p>\n
Excluding Erickson\u2019s 3-point shooting (4-for-5), the other \u2019Bows were a combined 2-for-21 from behind the arc.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s real disappointing,\u201d offensive coordinator Brad Davidson said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t play well enough to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the game, UH honored seniors Erickson, Isaac \u201cBig Fish\u201d Johnson, Harry Rouhliadeff, Dre Bullock, Gytis Nemeiksa and Yacine Toumi. When he was introduced, Johnson made his arm-chomping motion and then flashed a shaka sign before embracing head coach Eran Ganot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ailing Long Beach State freshman \u2014 6-foot-4 combo guard Gavin Sykes \u2014 administered the pain in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-210362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}