Box Score Box Score
DALLAS – The University of Hawaii men's basketball team's record-breaking season came to an end Friday afternoon with a 70-58 loss to seventh-seeded Xavier in the first round of the NCAA West Region Championships at the American Airlines Center.
A sold out crowd 19,951, about 300 in the Hawaii section, watched Hawaii's hopes of advancing to the second round of the tournament for the first time in the program's history fall short. Five Xavier players scored in double digits, led by guard Romain Sato who finished with 18.
Tenth-seeded Hawaii (27-6) fell behind early in the game but managed to tie the game at 14. Senior guard Predrag Savovic, took control to help the Warriors outscore the Musketeers 26-19 in the final 8:45 left in the first half to take a 40-33 lead at the break. The Rainbow Warriors had a 12-point lead, but Xavier (26-5) managed to score five points in the final 43 seconds to cut the halftime lead to seven.
“That turned the momentum,” UH Head Coach Riley Wallace said. “I told them to run it down to one or two seconds, so they wouldn't score. It wasn't important for us to score, we just wanted to keep it where it was.”
The second-half was the complete opposite. The Musketeers came out of the locker room and went on a 10-1 run to take the lead 43-41 and force Wallace to call timeout at the 13:54 mark. The Xavier defense forced 12 turnovers and the Hawaii shooters went cold shooting an uncharacteristic 21 percent from the field.
The Rainbow Warriors missed their first 11 shots to start the second half. It took close to 11 minutes for Hawaii, averaging 78 points coming into the game, to score five points in the second half.
“Xavier played like I thought they would,” Wallace said. “They played soft defense early and then they have another level to go to. They got into our offense. It was a combination of them playing great defense and we weren't patient.”
Savovic, who was named honorable-mention All-American earlier this week, led all scorers with 26 points. Sophomore forward Phil Martin scored 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds. All-American forward David West scored 13 points and pulled down 11 boards for the Musketeers.
“These kids are tired,” Wallace said. “They've been on the road for three weeks living out of a hotel. They just couldn't reach down and get that extra little bit. They couldn't turn it up when they had to. You have got to give Xavier credit for what they did, but we just seemed to be drained.”
UH
