HONOLULU — DeAndre Kane scored 23 points and No. 14 Iowa State overcame its worst half of the season to beat Boise State 70-66 on Wednesday night in the Diamond Head Classic championship game.
HONOLULU — DeAndre Kane scored 23 points and No. 14 Iowa State overcame its worst half of the season to beat Boise State 70-66 on Wednesday night in the Diamond Head Classic championship game.
Kane hit a 3-pointer with less than 2 minutes left to help seal the win for the Cyclones (11-0). Boise State’s Derrick Marks had a chance to tie with less than 30 seconds left, but missed a 15-foot jumper.
Melvin Ejim had 15 points and 10 rebounds.
The win gives Iowa State its best start to a season in school history. It started with 10 straight wins in the 1996-1997 season en route to a final 16 appearance in the NCAA tournament.
Derrick Marks had 23 points for Boise State (10-3).
Iowa State came back after making less than a third of its shots in the first half, improving to 50 percent in the second half, including 6 of 13 3-pointers (46.2 percent).
Kane earned tournament MVP honors for his three-game performance, with his biggest moments coming Wednesday.
Kane, Ejim and Georges Niang were selected to the all-tournament team. Anthony Drmic made the all-tournament team for Boise State.
Hawaii takes fifth place
Isaac Fotu scored 17 points as Hawaii beat Oregon State 79-73 in the fifth place game of the Diamond Head Classic Wednesday.
Garrett Nevels had 16, Christian Standhardinger 15 and Brandon Spearman added 14 for the Rainbow Warriors (9-3). Spearman also grabbed 10 rebounds and Keith Shamburger chipped in with nine points, 10 assists and six rebounds.
“The last two games the guy (Shamburger) has 16 (assists) and one (turnover). That’s unbelievable,” Hawaii coach Gib Arnold said of his point guard. “I even wanted him to shoot it a little more. He’s really getting everybody involved and taking it upon himself to get everyone involved.”
Hawaii, which led by as many as 19 points in the second half, shot 58.3 percent (7 of 12) on 3-pointers but just 55.2 percent (16 of 29) from the free-throw line.
Hawaii has now won seven of its last eight games.
“We beat two very good teams, we got beat by a team by one at the buzzer,” Arnold said. “I think we could’ve won this (tournament). The guys are upset because we couldn’t win it. We play good basketball at this time of the year.”
A 12-0 second-half run by Hawaii began with Fotu’s layup with 12:25 on the clock and concluded with his easy basket off an inbounds pass to make it 65-46 with 8:05 remaining.
Oregon State answered by scoring 16 of the next 20 points, but couldn’t cut the Hawaii lead to less than six points the rest of the way.
“We just started playing harder and we executed our offense, which we stopped doing and we stopped feeling sorry for ourselves,” Oregon State coach Craig Robinson said. “They (Hawaii) made a couple of shots and couple plays and we were feeling sorry for ourselves. You can’t beat a good team if you do that.”
It was the first time the teams have played since 2006 when Hawaii won 85-41 in Honolulu. The Beavers lead the all-time series 21-8.