Dayton denies Hawai'i

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i's Vaidotas Peciukas, left, wrests a rebound away from tournament MVP Keith Waleskowski of Dayton. Michael Conroy • Associated Press

A capacity crowd of 2,500 at the Lahaina Civic Center watched the Flyers become the first team from the Atlantic-10 Conference to win the prestigious tournament in its 20-year history.

"You win this tournament and it puts you at potentially a different level because of the fact of who's won this tournament (in the past)," said first-year Dayton head coach Brian Gregory. "Our name goes on that wall out there and will remain there forever, and that's pretty neat."

The Flyers did it with a neat second half that seemed to catch the Rainbow Warriors off guard.

"They switched to the zone and that was the difference in the ball game," UH head coach Riley Wallace said. "We stood and didn't get any movement."

Dayton (4-0) is hoping to make a move into the Top 25 next week based on its performance on Maui.

Hawai'i, which was participating in the Maui Invitational for the first time, dropped to 2-2.

"We came in here and I thought we got better every night," Wallace said.

So did the Flyers.

In the end, Dayton's size and senior leadership proved to be the difference.

Keith Waleskowski, a 6-foot-8 senior forward, scored seven of his 17 points during a crucial five-minute stretch of the second half, when the Flyers erased a seven-point deficit. He also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds, and was named the most valuable player of the tournament.

"Waleskowski is a great player and he was a big-time factor," Wallace said.

His partner in the low post, 7-foot senior Sean Finn, scored 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting and was also named to the all-tournament team.

Led by the two big men, Dayton scored 46 points "in the paint" to UH's 30, and won the rebounding battle, 33-24.

"At times, we matched up pretty good, but ... they kind of overwhelmed us a little bit," said UH forward Phil Martin. "They were just hard workers."

Perhaps more important than the points, Waleskowski and Finn were the anchors of a 3-2 defense that stymied UH's flex-motion offense in the second half.

"We didn't handle it the way we should have," said UH guard Michael Kuebler. "We were a little passive."

The 'Bows were held scoreless for a five-minute stretch against the Dayton zone.

"We're usually very good out of the zone because we got some shooters," Wallace said. "But for some reason, we stood. Whether it was fatigue or brain lock or what ever ... we never could get into it."

Dayton made the switch at halftime — Gregory said he even made his players physically walk through the defensive assignments in the locker room — after the 'Bows got several open baskets in the first half.

Despite getting out-rebounded and out-shot in the first half, the 'Bows still managed to take a 33-25 lead at halftime.

"We pretty much ran our flex offense non-stop that first half," said Kuebler, who scored 10 of his team-high 23 in the first half. "Beat 'em up with it."

Dayton didn't help its cause by committing 11 turnovers in the first half. In another telling statistic, the Flyers did not commit any turnovers in the second half.

Ramod Marshall, Dayton's senior point guard, led all scorers with 27 points and was also on the all-tournament team. Gregory called Marshall "the maestro" of the second-half rally.

"You couldn't do much worse than we did the first half in terms of taking care of the ball," Gregory said. "I think what happened in the first half, we were trying to rush everything. In the second half, Ramod controlled the tempo of the game."

The key stretch came when Dayton went on a 14-2 run to turn a 48-41 deficit into a 55-50 lead with 7:36 remaining. Waleskowski, Finn and Marshall combined to score all the points during the surge.

UH never got closer than three the rest of the way, and Dayton built the lead to as much 12.

Still, Hawai'i controlled the first 30 minutes of the game, and Gregory came away impressed. He said that Hawai'i "before the end of the year is going to be an exceptional team."

Martin added 14 points, and Haim Shimonovich 13 for UH.

Kuebler, who scored 67 points in the tournament, was the only UH player on the all-tournament team. Aerick Sanders of San Diego State was the fifth player selected.

"We definitely wanted to see our name up on the wall of past champions," Kuebler said. "But still this will be a good memory and good experience."

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8101.