HONOLULU — It took Mississippi most of the game to put things together, but when the Rebels did, they took over the game quickly.
HONOLULU — It took Mississippi most of the game to put things together, but when the Rebels did, they took over the game quickly.
Murphy Holloway scored 18 points and Mississippi pulled away in the final minutes to defeat Hawaii 81-66 in the fifth-place game of the Diamond Head Classic on Tuesday.
Nick Williams and Marshall Henderson scored 16 points each and Aaron Jones added 10 points for the Rebels (10-2), who broke away from a game tied at 63 to finish on an 18-3 run.
“I was proud of the fact that our guys at the end of the game made some adjustments, came up with some loose balls, defensively got a couple of stops, a couple key rebounds allowed us to get out in the open floor and stretch the game,” Mississippi coach Andy Kennedy said.
Jones’ putback gave the Rebels the lead for good at 65-63 with 3:40 left, and his emphatic, uncontested dunk made it 69-63 with 2:21 remaining.
Mississippi’s man-to-man defense shut down the Rainbow Warriors in the game’s final minutes. After Jones’ dunk, the Rebels came up with steals on back-to-back Hawaii possessions. Those steals led to Williams’ dunk and Jarvis Summers’ layup for a 73-63 lead with 1:25 left. Mississippi made six free throws to close out the game.
Vander Joaquim led Hawaii (6-5) with 29 points and 15 rebounds. Isaac Fotu had 11 points and Christian Stanhardinger had 10 in the loss.
“We just made some bad plays at the end,” Joaquim said. “They just kept coming. It was tough. They executed well the last couple minutes.”
No. 3 Arizona 68,
No. 17 San Diego State 67
HONOLULU — Nick Johnson blocked a layup by Chase Tapley in the closing seconds Tuesday night as No. 3 Arizona rallied from an eight-point deficit in the second half and remained undefeated with a 68-67 win over No. 17 San Diego State in the championship game of the Diamond Head Classic.
Mark Lyons hit a pair of free throws with 13 seconds remaining for the last points by Arizona (12-0), which is off to its best start in 25 years.
Tapley led the Aztecs (11-2) with 19 points, and he looked to have the game-winner when he found a clear path down the left side of the lane. Johnson, however, came racing over from the 3-point line and swatted the ball away, the buzzer sounding during a battle for the loose ball.
The Wildcats celebrated at midcourt, their first win against a ranked opponent away from home since beating Gonzaga in December 2008.
Solomon Hill kept Arizona in the game and finished with 21 points. He was voted the tournament MVP.
Jamaal Franklin, the leading scorer for San Diego State, ended his streak of 32 straight games scoring in double figures, and it was costly. He finished with nine points, missing a free throw with 31 seconds remaining that gave the Aztecs a 67-66 lead.
Lyons drove the lane on the next possession and was fouled by Skylar Spencer and made both free throws.
Neither team led by more than two points over the final 10 minutes.
Indiana St. 57,
Miami 55 (OT)
HONOLULU — Jake Odum banked in a 15-footer with eight-tenths of a second left in overtime to rally Indiana State to a 57-55 win over Miami Tuesday in the third-place game of the Diamond Head Classic.
Manny Arop and R.J. Mahurin scored 13 points apiece for the Sycamores (7-4), who trailed by as many as nine points and who shot just 27 percent from the field.
Mahurin sank two free throws with 16.9 seconds left in regulation to close out a 9-2 Indiana State run, which tied it at 49.
In overtime, the Sycamores took their first lead since 2-0 on Kristian Smith’s layup, but the Hurricanes used a 6-0 run, capped by an alley-oop from Shane Larkin to Rion Brown, to pull ahead 55-53 with just under 2 minutes to play.
Arop made two free throws to tie it at 55 with 1:03 left in overtime, and after Miami’s Kenny Kadji missed a shot, Smith got the rebound, and Indiana State called timeout with 29.3 seconds left.
Odum received the ensuing inbounds pass and held the ball until 5 seconds remained. He started to his right and then pump-faked near the free-throw line and hit what became the game-winning shot. The Hurricanes did not get a shot off at the end.
San Francisco 67,
ETSU 49
HONOLULU — Cole Dickerson scored 13 of his game-high 19 points in the first half, and San Francisco beat East Tennessee State 67-49 in the seventh-place game.
The Dons (6-6) also got 15 points from Cody Doolin and 10 from Tim Derksen to snap a five-game losing streak.
San Francisco shot 42.1 percent on 3-pointers and dominated ETSU inside, with a 38-21 rebounding advantage and a 24-16 edge in points in the paint.