Hawai'i rolls past Fresno State, 64-43

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

Fresno State struggled to score against the University of Hawai'i last night. Catching the Rainbow Wahine was out of the realm of possibility.

Hawai'i's Kim Willoughby takes a shot over Fresno State's Omelogo Udeze in the first half. Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser

The game was played before 611 at Stan Sheriff Center. Hawai'i never trailed and shot 56 percent in the second half to extend a 31-23 halftime advantage to 20 with 8:36 remaining. Fresno didn't threaten again with its only consistent offense coming on putbacks.

"Defensively, for 40 minutes that was as good as it gets," UH coach Vince Goo said. "But it's been that good much of the year. Offensively, we were very satisfied."

Hawai'i (10-5, 4-2 WAC) had five days to prepare for Sunday's San Jose State game. Goo figures now that was too long and zapped his team's energy. Two days of preparation for Fresno, and a 6 a.m. shoot-around yesterday, was ideal.

"Our players are going to put two and two together," Goo said, "and think they need only two days practice for a game."

All but two of the Rainbow Wahine's 24 baskets came off an assist. April Atuaia got Hawai'i going early and scored a game-high 17 points, missing just once.

"After the first two 3's," Atuaia said, "I felt like I could put them in."

Her success outside opened the inside in the second half and Hawai'i's post players filled it up, going 7-for-10 with Christen Roper scoring eight of her 14 points.

"They just shot so well tonight," said Stacy Johnson-Klein, in her first year as FSU's head coach after assisting at Louisiana Tech the last two. "You've got to give Hawai'i credit. They're a very good team. I believe Hawai'i is a Top 20 team. I believe they'll get their respect nationally that they need before long."

The Bulldogs' shooting was another, sad, story. Omelogo Udeze collected her third double-double (13 points, 12 rebounds) of the season, but missed 13 shots. That was about as good as it got.

Hawai'i won every matchup defensively, forced FSU to take shots it did not want and swatted 11 — not counting the two passes Kim Willoughby stuffed.

"When our shots didn't fall early we got that deer-in-headlights look," Johnson-Klein said. "We got a few shots blocked inside and it got in our kids' head. That combination — what did Roper have, seven blocks — that first half really hurt our confidence.

"We're over-achievers this year. We've done a lot of really good things, but we're not supposed to beat Hawai'i. We get grandiose as coaches and think we're playing pretty good basketball, we're turning this program around, we need to win this game. But in reality, we're not supposed to win this game."

But the Bulldogs (9-8, 3-4) were not supposed to beat SMU and Rice either, and did. They have as many victories as they had all last season and are basically the same team, with the exception of their coach, junior college transfer Chanie Sutherland and all-WAC volleyball player Java Johnson, who is starting.

The familiarity helped Hawai'i, particularly on defense. "Since this is exactly the same team as last year we still know them, we know how they play," Roper said. "And the coaches do such a good job of telling us exactly what they do in the game ... and they do exactly that the majority of the time."

Plus, the Rainbows have won the last 15 times the teams have played. Fresno has five seniors who have felt only futility.

The 'Bows' three point guards held all-WAC point Lindsay Logan into 2-for-11 shooting and eight points.

Hawai'i plays Nevada tomorrow at 7:15 p.m. The Wolf Pack, which opened its season 7-2, is now 7-10 and has lost all seven WAC games.