Rainbow Warriors topple Big West basketball leader UC Irvine

JoVon McClanahan scored a career-high 27 points, including two key free throws with 10.1 seconds to play, as the Hawaii basketball team surged to a 72-67 victory over UC Irvine today in SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

A sold-out crowd saw the short-handed ’Bows score 39 second-half points to knock off the Big West’s first-place team.

The ’Bows improved to 21-9 overall and 12-6 in the Big West. The Anteaters fell to 20-10 and 13-5.

The Anteaters closed to 70-67 on DJ Davis’ sixth 3 of the game with 33.8 seconds to play.

After the Anteaters knocked the ball out of bounds with 15.6 seconds to go, McClanahan was fouled with 10.1 seconds left.

Davis missed two 3s, the second attempt as time expired.

The ’Bows were without 6-foot-9 post Bernardo da Silva, who started the first 29 games. Da Silva suffered an ankle injury in Thursday’s loss to UC Riverside. But Mor Seck, a 7-foot-1 freshman, started in the post and hit all four of his first-half shots, including parlaying two McClanahan lobs into dunks. Seck finished with a double-double of 14 points and 16 rebounds.

Harry Rouhliadeff, who split time with Seck, had 10 points.

Davis finished with 27 points for the Anteaters.