Brice Williams, Juwan Gary combine for 53 points in win over Hawaii

Brice Williams tied his career-high with 32 points and made four 3s while Juwan Gary poured in 21 points and three 3s to help Nebraska advance to the Diamond Head Classic championship game with a 69-55 win over host Hawaii in a semifinal on Monday night.

Nebraska (9-2) will play Oregon State on Wednesday, Christmas day, for the tournament title. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. central time. Oregon State will enter the game with a 10-2 record. The Beavers beat Oakland 80-74 in overtime Monday in the other semifinal.

Monday night marked the first NU win over Hawaii since Dec. 3, 1976 — it snapped a five-game losing streak to the Warriors — and the Huskers’ two star veterans, Williams and Gary, led the way by combining for 53 points. The rest of the team went 8-of-27, or 29 percent.

NU shot 47 percent from the field and 41 percent, 7-of-17, from 3. Outside of Williams and Gary, no Husker player scored more than six points.

It was a slow start for NU, which trailed at one point 22-14 in the first half. But the Huskers fought back and started turning momentum thanks to strong effort on the defensive end. Hawaii committed 13 turnovers in the second half — three more than the number of made shots for the Warriors in the second half (10).

“They were pretty comfortable early in this game,” Fred Hoiberg told Huskers Radio Network after the game of Hawaii’s strong start. “But I thought we really put the clamps on them and that’s what got us back into it.”

The Huskers couldn’t make a shot and had a stretch of seven straight misses, which paved the way for an 8-0 Hawaii run and a 15-9 Warrior lead.

Hawaii bumped its edge to 20-12, but NU defended well and went on a massive 17-2 run with Williams hitting his third 3 of the half to give his team its first lead, 24-22, since being up 5-4. During that run, Williams scored eight points while Braxton Meah scored his sixth point.

Meah, the 7-foot-1 Washington transfer, finished with six points, five rebounds, one assist and one block. His plus/minus was plus-14.

“I thought Braxton was absolutely phenomenal tonight,” Hoiberg said. “His energy out there, I thought he was all over the place defensively.”

NU ended the first half poorly, however, by allowing the Warriors to score five points in 40 seconds. Instead of going into the half with a 29-22 lead, NU was up 29-27.

But then Williams and Gary did what veteran leaders are expected to. They balled out and carried their team to a win.

Williams scored 21 points in the second half and was efficient in doing so, shooting 7-of-11 from the field plus a 6-of-6 outing from the free-throw line. Gary scored 13 points on 6-of-7 shooting.

“We got a little rhythm, especially with Brice. He was the one who had it going tonight obviously, and I thought our guys did a nice job of finding him,” Hoiberg said.

NU stretched its lead in the second half thanks to a 9-2 run that included a Williams 3, a sweet-footwork post bucket from Berke Buyuktuncel and two turnovers from Hawaii, one of which was a shot clock violation. Williams had seven of the nine points.

NU took a 45-39 lead after Gary scored seven straight points. Hawaii cut its deficit to as little as three points, 32-29, midway through the second half, but that’s as close as the Warriors got.

“Those last 10 or 12 minutes, I’m really proud at how the guys went out there and defended. That’s what’s going to carry us,” Hoiberg said. “Last year’s team was pretty, we executed, we cut, we got easy baskets. This one, we’re gonna have to grind some games out. But this team I think is built for that, and it’s going to be different guys on different nights.”

Hoiberg said he and his staff will get to work right away with Oregon State film before putting together a game plan for Wednesday night.

“It’s a team that’s going to throw some different things at us,” Hoiberg said. “They’re very skilled and I saw some of the game today, they played a lot of zone. So we’ll go into the gym tomorrow, get a good walk-through, have a nice film session and get the guys off their feel and hopefully ready to come out and compete for this championship on Wednesday.”