At the end, basketball at the University of Hawaii feels like it reached a new beginning, 103 years after it started.
There are any number of reasons to question why it took so long, but the more significant point is that the Rainbows, after a couple minutes of sloppy play cost them a lead and then the game, 73-60 against Maryland in the NCAA tournament, may have just experienced a promising rebirth.
The opportunity to make the most of the Oahu environment, to make the basketball program a desired environment, not just for tourists — they’ll always come here — but for highly regarded high school players may have finally arrived.
UH-Manoa has always been forward-leaning in terms of marketing itself as one of the most diverse schools in the world, but it has not yet achieved the malama in basketball it has always desired.
Last week, the Rainbows, under the guidance of a first-year head coach you never heard of, may have made a delectable invasion into the heads of youthful basketball players around the country.
Playing loose and free, confidently contesting the high expectations of major college power Maryland, a team with vastly more depth and the pervasive anticipation of a return run to the Final Four championship it won in 2002, the ‘Bows played 30 minutes of captivating basketball Sunday in Spokane. Not just competitive basketball, but smart, almost elegant basketball, the kind that a talented young kid in California, or anywhere else, wants to be a part of.
In losing to the Terrapins, Hawaii had season-long statistic it earned somehow overturned against the Big Ten team. The ‘Bows played 33 games prior to their Round of 32 appearance, and in the process, their inside-out game helped them to 21st in the nation in free throw attempts, but this time, it seemed they couldn’t get to the foul line if they had an engraved invitation.
Maryland went 28-for-31 from the foul line, deserving of a tip of the cap, while Hawaii was just 10-for-15 and watching the game, you would have thought the foul disparity would have been much closer. Losing 16 points from the foul line in a 13-point game is a pretty big deal.
No, this is not an attempt to blame the officials or anyone else for the defeat, these things happen to teams from one-bid conferences that have never played this late in the season. Actually, these things happen to teams like this, from conferences like the Big West, much sooner and with a bigger bruise.
This wasn’t a game taken from them, it was game in which they could have created more trouble for the Terps had the ‘Bows done a better job from behind the arc. That’s something recruiting needs to solve because there has been an indisputable weakness in 3-point shooting for UH that screams out like neon numbers on a black-and-white.
Hawaii was a distant 265th nationally in 3-point shooting this season, making just over 32 percent of its attempts. By comparison, the Division II UH-Hilo Vulcans shot just under 37 percent this year, a five percent difference that could have meant the difference in a few games, like one against Maryland. UH was only 4-for-19 in the Maryland game, below even its poor standard. Granted, the Terrapins made just one 3-pointer the entire game, but that only adds to the point. A 35 percent shooting night from beyond the arc might have changed everything.
But it’s fair to say Eron Ganot (uhRON guhNOT) — the coach you never heard of — has his foot in the door of something that could transform the UH-Manoa athletic department, especially if he can convince the underclassmen to stay around next year, with NCAA probation scheduled to ban the Rainbows from the postseason (pending an appeal), due to rules violations by the previous coaching staff.
You would encourage Ganot to go back to Oakland, the place that NBA great Gary Payton and graduating Rainbows’ senior Roderick Bobbitt came from, to find more point guards. Big guys are always a priority, but a special effort should be made to find at least one good 3-point shooter.
In any case, this was an accelerated season of achievement since the school started play more than a century ago with a team that didn’t even have a coach for the first three years it competed in basketball.
It has one now, and with Ganot in charge, with a full recruiting season to find some key parts, the glance toward the horizon looks better than it ever has.
