Games Notes

HONOLULU, Hawaii -- Louisiana Tech will be fighting to put the skids on a four-game losing streak Saturday as the Bulldogs play at Hawaii in an 11 p.m. contest at the Stan Sheriff Center.

The Bulldogs stand at 6-8 overall and 1-4 in the Western Athletic Conference while Hawaii has won two straight and is 10-2 and 2-2.

Tech had been struggling offensively until last Thursday when the Bulldogs turned in a season-high 87 points in a one-point road loss to San Jose State. Tech's scoring total was the most for the Bulldogs since a 99-97 overtime win at Nevada during the 2002-03 season.

But while Tech's offense finally showed up, the defense was AWOL as the last time the Bulldogs lost after scoring that many points came by the score of 100-89 at Louisiana-Monroe during the 1990-91 season.

"We have to find a way to turn in a solid 40 minutes on both sides of the floor," Louisiana Tech coach Keith Richard said. "We have to find a way to start playing better and work ourselves out of this."

The Bulldogs went 5-1 in December but have gone 0-4 in January.

Sophomore forward Paul Millsap leads the Bulldogs with 19.5 points and 11.7 rebounds per game while Corey Dean is adding 11.2 points and 4.0 rebounds per game for Tech.

Hawaii has three players scoring in double figures, led by Julian Sensley with 13.2 points and 7.3 rebounds per game while Matt Gibson is chipping in with 13.0 ppg and 1.4 rpg. Jeff Blackett rounds out Hawaii's top scorers with 10.3 ppg and 6.5 rpg.

Sensley also leads the Rainbow Warriors in assists with 2.75 per game.

Hawaii stormed to a 8-0 record in non-conference play before dropping their first two WAC games, both on the road, to Fresno State and Nevada.

But the Warriors are coming off big home wins against San Jose State (71-45) and SMU (71-59) and are looking to move to 10-0 on the season in the Stan Sheriff Center.

The last time the teams met Louisiana Tech picked up its first WAC victory in Hawaii as the Bulldogs pulled off the 62-61 win.

In that contest Dean pulled up and hit the game-winning jumper with 49 seconds reamining, but Tech then held on for a pair of defensive stops in the waning seconds as the Bulldogs pulled off the win. Millsap led the Bulldogs with 19 points and eight rebounds in that contest while Wayne Powell added 15 points and five rebounds for the Bulldogs.

Michael Kuebler and Jeff Blackett topped Hawaii with 15 points each in that one-point loss to Tech.

Louisiana Tech leads Hawaii 4-3 in a series which began during the 1983-84 season. While Tech has a one-game series advantage, Hawaii has outscored the Bulldogs 454-446 in the series for an average win 64.8 - 63.7.

The game will be broadcast on KXKZ-FM 107.5 in Ruston with the pregame show beginning at 10:30 p.m.