With an ambitious recruiting effort and the return of its leading scorer, the University of Hawaii basketball team is picked to finish third in the 11-team Big West this season, according to polling of the league coaches.<\/p>\n
After finishing ninth last season \u2014 and missing the league\u2019s postseason tournament for the first time in Eran Ganot\u2019s 10 years as head coach \u2014 the Rainbow Warriors added eight transfers and a freshman during the offseason. Gytis Nemeiksa, who led the \u2019Bows in scoring last season, received a waiver for an extra season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think everyone likes to see polls,\u201d associate head coach Brad Davidson said. \u201cIt seems you\u2019ve done a good job recruiting, and then you have to put a team together, and get them to jell, and go for the No. 1 spot.\u201d<\/p>\n
UC Irvine earned the top position by receiving eight first-place votes and 98 points. UC Santa Barbara is second with three No. 1 votes and 93 points. UH is third with 76 points.<\/p>\n
\u201cNobody knows who anybody has yet, really,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cWe look at the transfer portal, and a lot of teams change now in college basketball. I think the preseason rankings are even less predictive than what they\u2019ve been before.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2019Bows will get their first test with Saturday\u2019s exhibition against Pomona-Pitzer at Bankoh Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. There is no fee for admission or parking.<\/p>\n
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!<\/strong><\/p>\n Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to see how far we are down the road with putting everything in,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of new guys. These things are important. These games are important early. The biggest thing you get from this is good film to show the guys. We can improve from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Isaac \u201cBig Fish\u201d Johnson, a 7-foot transfer from Utah State, has shown an outside-scoring touch during fall training. Along with senior Harry Rouhliadeff and Nemeikas, according to Davidson, \u201cwe\u2019ll see a lot of (outside) shooting from our bigs this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Tanner Cuff, a 6-7 transfer from Evansville, is a point guard who can post up and shoot from the perimeter.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s more of a downhill guy,\u201d Davidson said. \u201cHaving the shooting from the bigs, hopefully it will all complement each other. We\u2019re going to use (Cuff\u2019s) skills to the best of his ability.\u201d<\/p>\n Quandre \u201cDre\u201d Bullock, a 6-6 wing with a 46-inch vertical jump, \u201cis the best athlete we\u2019ve had in my time here,\u201d Davidson, who is entering his fifth season with UH, said of the South Dakota transfer. \u201dIt\u2019ll be fun once he finds out where he fits into the offensive system and how we can use him a little more.\u201d<\/p>\n At the two and three positions, Davidson said, \u201che can play in a pick-and-roll, he can shoot. Once he gets downhill, if he beats someone off the dribble, the five man better look out as he comes to help because (Bullock) gets on the rim very quickly and really tries to dunk it when he goes downhill.\u201d<\/p>\n Davidson said Bullock\u2019s length and quickness are key as an on-ball defender.<\/p>\n \u201cHe can disrupt the offense before it gets started by getting deflections and the way he moves around the floor,\u201d Davidson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With an ambitious recruiting effort and the return of its leading scorer, the University of Hawaii basketball team…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":310536,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,4582,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-310535","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-editors","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115389141955100450","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}