HONOLULU, HI (December 31, 2014) – The Hawai'i Pacific Men's Basketball Team beat a tough British Columbia team 73-64 in an exhibition game on New Year's Eve at Moanalua High School.
The Sharks came out sharp after the winter break layoff, HPU grabbed the early lead and built a 15-7 advantage by the 10:43 mark of the first half.
The visitors made a move by scoring 12 of the next 15 points to take the lead over the next four plus minutes. UBC, a NAIA school from Vancouver, held the lead for the rest of the half but HPU stayed close at 36-33.
The second half opened with UBC taking a five-point lead, but then
Justin Long hit back-to-back three-pointers and
Luke Hager made a layup to suddenly put HPU up three. The Sharks added to the lead and went up nine at 52-43 on another deep ball from Long, one of his five threes of the day. HPU held serve from there, UBC only got the lead to less than five points once in the final 9:22.
"UBC is a very good team. This was a good test as we come back from break and prepare for a challenging conference schedule. I thought we competed well in the second half," said Head Coach
Darren Vorderbruegge.
Every HPU player saw action in the game, including redshirts
Darnell Bettis,
Ethan Eads and
Nikola Urli. Each player got at least six minutes of action while no one saw more than 27 minutes.
Long had a game-high 27 points, 22 of them in the second half. Hager scored 13, grabbed a game-high nine rebounds, and passed out three assists.
Josh Morgan tallied 12 points on four three-pointers.
HPU heads to the North Shore for a PacWest game vs. BYU-Hawaii on Friday at 7:30 pm.
Box Score
