HONOLULU - Gabe Vincent tied his career-high with five three-point baskets, the last one coming with 3:57 to play and pulling UC Santa Barbara within 58-57, but Hawaii outscored the Gauchos 7-0 the rest of the way to claim a 65-57 Big West win on Saturday night.
UCSB (6-8, 0-1) had its four-game winning streak ended while the Rainbow Warriors (13-2, 2-0) won their fifth straight game and ninth in their last 10.
"The game just got away from us in the last few minutes," said Gaucho head coach Bob Williams. "We had a couple of defensive breakdowns and they made us pay for them."
Hawaii made 5-of-6 free throws down the stretch and Stefan Jankovic scored the only field goal when Isaac Fleming drove baseline and found him with a nice feed. Jankovic made his uncontested lay-up as the shot clock ran out to give his team a 61-57 lead with just under minute to play.
"That was a big play," Williams said. "That made it a two possession game and kind of limited what we could do on the next couple of possessions."
Michael Bryson kept UCSB in the game by scoring 10 points in the first half. He finished with his second double-double of the season with 16 points and 10 rebounds. Vincent scored a team-high 17 points, 11 in the second half. Mitch Brewe added eight points and five boards.
As a team, the Gauchos shot just 37.7% from the field and 25.0% (5-for-20) from three-point range. The Warriors were limited to 39.3% overall and a mere 20.0% (5-for-25). They were led by Fleming with a game-high 22 points. Jankovich finished with 19.
At times, UCSB was its own worst enemy, committing 19 turnovers.
"That is just too many times to turn the ball over," Williams said. "I thought they did a nice job of pressuring the perimeter, but some of those were unforced errors and they were really costly."
UCSB remains on the road for one more game when it travels to Cal Poly for a 7:00 pm game in Thursday, Jan. 14. The Gauchos will play their first Big West home game on Saturday, Jan. 16 when they host UC Irvine at 4:00 pm at the Thunderdome.
