Boxscore Hawaii made its move after intermission Saturday as the Rainbow Warriors took a 67-60 road win over Louisiana Tech before crowd of 2,679 at the Thomas Assembly Center.
The loss dropped the Bulldogs to 8-8 overall and 2-4 in the Western Athletic Conference while Hawaii climbed to 12-3 and 4-1.
Louisiana Tech trailed 26-24 at the half, but the Rainbow Warriors outscored the Bulldogs 41-36 in the second stanza to pick up their third straight win.
"The first six minutes of the second half were the story of the game," Tech coach Keith Richard said. "We had great energy and defensive effort in the first half. But we didn't bring it in the second half. We started slow, and when you play a team like Hawaii like that, they'll pick you apart. And that's exactly what Hawaii did."
Hawaii hit on 60 percent (15-25) of its shots in the second half after connecting on only 39.3 percent (11-28) of its first-half field goal attempts.
"We just didn't do the right things in the second half," Tech forward
Wayne Powell said. "We didn't lock down on defense in the first five minutes of the second half and let them get away from us."
Powell and
Paul Millsap scored 16 each to lead the Bulldogs while Millsap picked up his 11th double-double on the season with 15 rebounds. Powell added seven rebounds for the Bulldogs, who outrebounded Hawaii 42-30 on the night.
Free throws played a crucial role, with Hawaii sinking 80 percent of its shots from the charity stripe (12-15) while the Bulldogs managed to connect on only 52.4 percent (11-21) of their shots from the line.
Hawaii had stretched its lead to 15 points at 51-36 with 11:29 remaining, but the Bulldogs slowly battled back, cutting the Warriors' advantage to five points on a Powell jumper with 4:59 left on the clock.
But that's as close as the Bulldogs would get as Hawaii hit the shots it needed down the stretch to keep Tech from getting back into the game.
"You can't guard a team that good for only 30 minutes and expect to win," Richard said. "You have to guard them the entire 40 minutes. We didn't do that, and we didn't win because of it."
Donell Allick added 11 points for the Bulldogs while Tech's
Corey Dean chipped in with nine points and six assists.
Hawaii's Julian Sensley hit on 9-of-11 shots from the floor to lead his team with 19 points while Phil Martin and Michael Kuebler added 14 points each for the Warriors.
"The most disappointing thing is that we had two of the better teams in the WAC so far on our home court, and we had opportunities to win at home and didn't get it done," Richard said. "We're still five or 10 minutes short of beating good teams like Hawaii was tonight. That's what inexperience is. Hopefully we can grow and start playing 40 minute games before the season gets too old."
Tech returns to the road for next week's lone game as the Bulldogs play a 2 p.m. contest at Southern Methodist on Saturday.
