The unending search for lineup versatility might be the Eternal Quest for basketball coaches around the globe.
For as much as individually talented players can contribute on the floor, they can’t play all the time and if they do, their effectiveness always diminishes the longer they’re on the floor.
For UH-Hilo men’s basketball coach GE Coleman, it has taken three full seasons and as many recruiting classes to arrive at this year’s roster, which, two weeks before the first game, has the look of genuine versatility all over the floor, but especially in the post.
“It’s a new world,” Coleman said the other day with a knowing smile. “We’re not real big but we are big enough and our guys can create some problems depending how teams play us.
It’s a far cry from the first year, when he had to resort to assembling a makeshift roster from what amounted to the second-hand store. The second year featured a burgeoning talent, center Tre Johnson, but he played without much of a supporting cast. Last year, Johnson signed an overseas professional contract over the summer and his anticipated partner in crime on the front line, Darius Johnson-Wilson, missed the entire season with a knee injury.
Without Johnson-Wilson last year they competed essentially without a center. Salim Gloyd, voted the newcomer of the year in the Pacific West Conference after playing just half a season, functioned in that capacity even though he’s more a natural power forward or small forward-type.
That brings us to the present, where the healthy and focused 6-foot-6 Johnson-Wilson leads a multi-headed attack in the post position where he will be aided by 6-6 junior transfer Brian Ishola (North Dakota State), 6-5 transfer Arnie Silva (Santa Rosa JC), and, at times, the emotional leader of the team, 6-3 junior Randan Berinobis, who will jump in to rebound and defend.
It’s not a big collection of post players in the sense of dominating height, but this is a group that is big on rebounding, rim protection and versatility, three major areas that held the Vulcans back a year ago.
“We still aren’t real big,” Coleman said after the loss of 6-11 freshman Onyx Boyd, sidelined with a medical issue before returning home to Virginia last week, “but we will be versatile, and that’s something we haven’t had that will serve us well.”
Coleman will eagerly use that in the post this season because Johnson-Wilson is armed with a variety of inside moves from either side of the basket, he has “soft hands,” and he is, in the estimation of his coach, “the best passer we have.”
That last part is important. Johnson-Wilson is a student of basketball, a player who has followed the career of Golden State’s Draymond Green ever since Green was at Michigan State and has, to some extent, used similar talents.
“There may not be one thing they rely on him for, maybe not one thing he does better than anyone else,” Johnson-Wilson said of Green, “but he’s one of those guys who knows the game and he’s really good at a lot of things, rebounding, passing, defending, you can go on and on, and he’s always helping you somewhere on the floor. That’s the kind of player I try to be.”
It’s working, says Ishola, who came from a Division I program and has seen a lot of talent at a higher NCAA level.
“I was shocked by him,” Ishola said of Johnson-Wilson. “He is a great passer, his vision on the floor is way, way up there; he is the best passing big man I have ever played with.
“The advantage when your center is a pass-first guy is that it keeps everyone evolved, everyone’s thinking, everyone’s looking ahead to where the pass might go, where the open spots are, it makes you a real team in a hurry in that sense.”
Johnson-Wilson has developed into that kind of player for that exact reason.
“It’s human nature, it’s my nature, at least, to be a selfless player,” he said. “I love helping others, I’m motivated in life that way and this is an extension of that, I think. When you get the ball in the post and you can bring everyone else together, get their confidence going, get that smooth ball rotation going, that’s what it’s all about.”
Players like Ishola or Silva, who has upper arms the size of your thighs and considers all rebounds on the offensive glass to be his, understand what Johnson-Wilson can do and it unconsciously becomes part of their games and can give Coleman a change of pace when he puts them in.
“It hurt losing Onyx,” Johnson-Wilson said, “because (defenses) would have to pay attention to him while it would free up the rest of us down low, but even without the prototypical post player, we are perhaps a little undersized but we should always be fresh and aggressive in the post and we have some physical players that will surprise people.”
If one 6-6 post looks like an easy time to an opponent, two of them create a different problem, and that roster rotation is at the core of Hawaii Hilo’s newfound versatility.
“I’m really looking forward to teams trying to go big and load up on us in the post,” Coleman said with a cagey grin. “If that happens and we go small, it will be interesting to see how they matchup with our quickness and aggressiveness.”
The season starts in less than three weeks with a game in Seattle against Simon Fraser University on Nov. 11, with a second game against Seattle Pacific the next day.
Nobody’s making championship predictions, they all know they have to prove it on the floor.
But expectations? After coming up one game short last season with a battered roster, they all expect to be in the playoff mix from start to finish this season.
For this school, that is the Eternal Quest.
