The Brigham Young-Hawaii men's basketball team showed why it is the best of the West last night.

The Seasiders had five players in double figures, led by JR Buensuceso's 21 points, to hold off Humboldt State, 98-84, in an NCAA Division II West Regional first round game at Cannon Activities Center.

A crowd of about 1,800 mostly red-clad fans saw the top-seeded Seasiders shoot a lights-out 56.4 percent from the field to won their 23rd straight and improve to 26-1. The Lumberjacks ended their season at 20-12.

BYUH meets Cal State Dominguez Hills at 7:30 p.m. tonight in a second-round game. The Toros beat Central Washington in yesterday's other first round game.

"It's always good to win and I thought our guys played hard," Seasiders coach Ken Wagner said. "I wasn't as pleased with our sharing the ball as I normally am, but I think for the first game of the postseason, it's good to get it behind you and hopefully we'll be ready to play tomorrow."

Humboldt State's Zac Tiedeman — who was diagnosed with pneumonia earlier in the week — opened the game with a 3-pointer from 27 feet away to give his team it's first — and only — lead at 3-0. Buensuceso hit his first of four from behind the arc to tie it and Nathan Sims hit another trey to make it 6-3. Buensuceso hit a running banker minutes later that capped a 13-0 run and put the Seasiders ahead 13-3.

BYUH shot 52 percent (14 of 27) from the field in the first half to take a 47-34 lead at the intermission.

The Seasiders led by as many as 19 points with about 15 minutes left after Jermaine Odjegba's tip-in to make the score 60-41. But the Lumberjacks rallied to close within five on a Tiedeman layup with just under four minutes to play, which made it 83-78.

BYUH went back to its outside game to quickly made it a nine-point game after back-to-back 3-pointers by Trenson Akana and Buensuceso and the Lumberjacks would get no closer. The Seasiders hit nine of their final 12 free throws to seal it.

"We always like to go to the line," Wagner said. "(Former North Carolina head coach) Dean Smith said the perfect offense is to get fouled every time you have the ball and I think it is nice if you can hit your free throws and we did a pretty good job of that."

BYUH made 28 of its 40 free-throw attempts while Humboldt State shot just eight times from the line, making six.

"Yeah it was justified," Lumberjacks coach Tom Wood said. "I think the referee called it the way he saw it, so I think it's justified."

West Region Player of the Year Lucas Alves scored 17 points with seven rebounds and three blocks for BYUH. Sims had 15 points, Odjegba 13 points and nine rebounds, Jet Chang added 12 points and Akana contributed 10.

Tiedeman led all scorers with 27 points, including 17 in the second half. Kevin Atkins had 19 points and Jameson Figgatt added 12 for the Lumberjacks.

"I'm very disappointed we lost, we felt we had a chance," Wood said. "But, you've got to give credit to (BYUH). They're awfully good and talented, but we made way too much mistakes in order to beat a team like that."