Aggies rally late but can't catch Hawaii in Big West men's basketball opener
Sevilla leads comeback with 17 second-half points in 75-69 setback
HONOLULU - UC Davis mounted a late comeback, but fell short and suffered a 75-69 loss to Hawaii in a men’s basketball Big West opener before an enthusiastic crowd of 4,219 Thursday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The Aggies are now 5-3 overall, while Hawaii moves to 7-2.
UCD had several brief leads in the first half, the final time at 23-22 on a free throw by Niko Rocak, but Hawaii responded with a 10-0 run and took a 33-28 lead into intermission.
The Aggies never led again.
Hawaii took its biggest lead of the night at 60-48 with 8:18 remaining, but the Aggies rallied behind a 3-pointer from Connor Sevilla and a pair of free throws from Rocak to cut the deficit to 71-68 at 1:05, but Hawaii hit several clutch free throws down the stretch to take the win.
“That was a disappointing performance,” said Aggie head coach Jim Les.
“We had a multitude of mistakes at the start of the game and didn’t show a lot of discipline. We had moments when we fought back, but in life you get what you deserve and what you earn and tonight we earned a loss.”
Sevilla led the Aggies with 17 points, all in the second half, while Nils Cooper had 14 and Rocak 13 along with eight rebounds.
UCD shot just 42.4 percent from the field to 54.3 percent for Hawaii.
After a week off for finals, the Aggies travel to Eugene to take on the Oregon Ducks Dec. 13 at 1 p.m., then return home Dec. 17 at 6 p.m. for a non-conference battle with Seattle University.
UCD doesn’t resume Big West play until New Year’s Day at home in a 2 p.m. game against Cal State Northridge.