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USF stuns Hawaii in season finale, 77-74

Special to WarriorInsider.com

The first chapter in the University of Hawaii’s “Gib Arnold Era” ended abruptly Saturday night, as San Francisco stunned the Warriors, 77-74, in the second round of the CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament.

A crowd of 6,491 at the Stan Sheriff Center watched the Dons outscore UH 11-1 in the final 82 seconds to improve to 19-14 and advance to Tuesday’s quarterfinals against Santa Clara.

The Warriors end Arnold’s first season as head coach at 19-13.

“I’m still stunned,” said senior forward Bill Amis, who scored 12 points and grabbed 13 rebounds to close out a standout career. “We gave the game away.”

Freshman guard Cody Doolin sneaked in for a tough layup over two defenders with 7.3 seconds remaining to give USF a 75-74 lead – its first since 2-0 in the game’s opening moments. After a timeout with 6 seconds left, Hawaii point guard Miah Ostrowski raced down the court and dropped a bounce pass for Amis near the basket, but the ball skirted out of bounds.

“Coach said to get the ball to the rim and we did, but the guy (San Francisco’s Angelo Caloiaro) tipped it out of bounds,” Amis said. “I thought it would be our ball, so I was surprised they gave them the ball.”

The Dons gained possession with 1.8 ticks remaining and inbounded the ball to Rashad Green, who was fouled with 0:01 showing on the clock. Green, who finished with a game-high 22 points and 15 rebounds, sank both free throws to make it 77-74.

Ostrowski then threw a three-quarters-court pass to Bo Barnes, but Barnes had to leap to his left to catch it and his foot landed on the sideline, giving the ball back to the Dons. They inbounded the ball to run out the final second.

“For 38 minutes, we played pretty good basketball against a very good team, but darn it, we didn’t finish,” Arnold said. “It was a matter of getting one more stop, one more rebound … It hurts, but I hope it hurts because any time you compete and lose, it’s gonna hurt.”

For 38 minutes-plus, it looked as if Arnold’s storybook first season as head coach would indeed continue. Vander Joaquim’s slam dunk off a nifty laser pass from Ostrowski capped a 7-0 run to put the Warriors up, 11-4, and although USF later tied it at 19-19 midway through the first half, UH quickly took the lead back and surged ahead, 40-33, by intermission.

The Warriors maintained the lead and were still ahead, 73-66, after two free throws by Ostrowski with 1:22 left. But Green was fouled while shooting a 3-pointer seven seconds later and sank all three foul shots to close it to 73-69. Zane Johnson then made one of two free throws with 1:11 remaining to put Hawaii up, 74-69.

After Green made a putback 10 seconds later to make it 74-71, Ostrowski missed two foul shots and Doolin raced up the court and converted a layup to close it to 74-73 with 48 seconds left.

The Warriors then worked the clock down and eventually got the ball to leading scorer Johnson, but his jump shot from the right corner was off the mark and Doolin converted the go-ahead layup on the other end.

“We just tried to spread the floor as best we could and let our players make plays,” Dons coach Rex Walters said. “We knew that even with their lead, they have to respect our shooters and they don’t want to foul us and stop the clock, so we were able to drive in and get layups. Cody’s been in that situation a lot, and he stepped up.”

Further hurting the Warriors was 4 of 8 free throw shooting in the final 1:41.

“We needed to get stops and we needed to make free throws, and we did neither,” said Amis. “You can’t win when you do that.”

Perris Blackwell added 14 points, Doolin had 13 points and Michael Williams contributed 11 points for San Francisco.

Johnson, who was just 1 for 9 from 3-point range, Joaquim and Trevor Wiseman each scored 13 points to lead UH, and Joston Thomas added 12 points off the bench. The Warriors had five players finish with double-figure points, the first time that has happened since 2008 — also in a loss to San Francisco.

Ostrowski contributed nine points and six assists, but also committed eight turnovers in 39 minutes.

“In the big picture, this team represented the islands well,” Arnold said. “I’m gonna miss this group, it’s been a great year and they were fun to coach. They came together and played their hearts out, including tonight.

“From the redshirts who didn’t play, to the All-Conference guys like Bill, they brought out their best every day and I’m as proud as I can be.”

Below is video of the final 48 seconds of the game.

Photos by Brandon Flores. To view more photos or purchase copies, please visit www.brandonfloresphotography.com

4 Comments

  1. Yep, Dayton this one is heartbreaking and frustrating. I’m in shock. This one hurts.

  2. This was just downright disapointing. I hope Gib realizes that he needs to recruit a point guard badly and that all the players need to work on their free throws.

  3. After watching the game,I would have to agree that we do need a defensive point guard ( Darius smith) as are final recruit. Miah was a little too small and maybe a little too tired to play defence on that deciding basket.

  4. It was heartbreaking last night for everyone who was there, we were shell shocked, hope recruiting goes well ,maybe we’ll land Pierre Jackson of So.Idaho ,pg who scored over 20pts in national jc title game. Gib and co. deserve a grade A for bringing the program back to life, can’t wait till midnight Ohana this October!!

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