This is the second of a two-part series that reflects on the 20-6-17 season and looks ahead to next year for the basketball programs at UHH ADVERTISING This is the second of a two-part series that reflects on the 20-6-17
This is the second of a two-part series that reflects on the 20-6-17 season and looks ahead to next year for the basketball programs at UHH
At any level of basketball, coaches necessarily have concerns about building a serviceable roster with a competitive level of depth and talent, but in the real world, those contingencies are more foreboding at some places than they are at others.
In Division II basketball, and especially at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, recruiting is an issue coaches at bigger schools with reasonable budgets have never known.
The recently completed 2016-17 season for the UHH men’s team is a serviceable example. For a school that spends more than 70 percent of its athletic budget on travel, there isn’t much left for anything else. When coach GE Coleman finds a player that fits in this unique environment and that player also happens to bring the exact skills the roster requires, it’s like hitting a row of cherries on a Las Vegas slot machine.
When those players end up falling through the cracks, the bottom falls out of the expectations game. In the briefest way possible, that explains a lot about the 10-16 (8-12 in the Pacific West Conference), record last season.
Coleman signed a rangy, defensive-minded wing, Donovan Taylor from Chaffey College in Southern California, to close down perimeter shooting, which had been a liability the previous season. Also on the roster was 6-foot-11 freshman Onyx Boyd, who slipped to UHH because he had been injured in high school and was off a lot of schools’ radar.
Boyd would have been the rim protector defensively and a tough matchup offensively, with a slick left-handed hook shot from the low post.
By the time the season started, both were back home. Taylor had indicated his academics were in line but it turned out he was a class short and would have to either redshirt the season or make it up in the fall and wait until January to join the squad. He would have been a significant help in practice, challenging players like senior Parker Farris on the perimeter, but the athletic department reminded Taylor’s scholarship offer and sent him home rather than allowing him to stay and be a part of the squad.
Boyd developed a concerning issue around his heart that kept him sidelined early in practice and he eventually dropped out and headed back to Virginia.
“There’s no do-overs,” Coleman said last week in a telephone conversation while he was recruiting in California. “We thought we were adding some nice pieces, but by the time we got started, it was not the group we planned on.”
The Vulcans were competitive against most teams but the shortcomings on perimeter defense and around the rim were noticeable as they allowed teams to shoot 50 percent or more from the floor in 13 of their 26 games. When you have that level of defensive issues, with a seven-man rotation, it’s virtually impossible to win games.
It took a toll on Coleman, who battled through a bout with bronchitis during the season and then, when he started recruiting, he was hit with what he described as a “nasty” migraine that left him immobilized in a dark hotel room for two days.
“That’s what being 10-16 will do for you,” he said with a cynical chuckle. “We had zero rim protection, really nothing. I haven’t looked at it, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we were dead last in the conference in blocked shots.”
No surprise, UHH was last in the PWC with just 43 blocked shots, 10 fewer than Concordia, next to last.
The issues for Coleman involve the hope for a kind of pole vault into the future, where they can compete with the Southern California schools that are fully funded and have a virtual smorgasbord of recruiting talent all around them.
“We played Cal Baptist and they were taking it to us when they put in the 10th guy off the bench,” Coleman said, “it was a 6-10 transfer from Sacramento State. That’s the level we need to compete with and we can only do it with a lot more depth.”
Exemplifying the point, the Vulcans hung their season around the shoulders of senior Parker Farris who established a number of personal, season and school records, including a 47-point effort in his last game. He was as good a long range shooter as existed in the conference last year, but because defenses were clinging to him, there were five players in the PWC with more 3-point field goals. Those teams had depth and balance.
Hawaii-Hilo was 6-3 against Chaminade, Notre Dame de Namur, Dominican, Academy of Art, Holy Names and Fresno Pacific, but it was 2-9 against the other schools, including the six that made the conference tournament, all of those schools, including Hawaii Pacific, are fully funded.
It wasn’t as though Coleman was without players. North Dakota State transfer Brian Ishola was a beast on the boards, leading the squad with 201 rebounds, 39 more than Randan Berinobis. The good news is that both of those players will be back, but will it be enough?
“Brian was tremendous for us,” Coleman said, “and Randan will battle with anyone, but we played teams in our conference who had four, five or more players at Brian’s level and they can just wear you down.
“The only thing we can do is keep building, keep adding depth, keep getting bigger, there’s no other way out of this.”
Coleman doesn’t like to talk about the impact Taylor and Boyd might have made on the 2016-17 team, but it seems obvious.
“Donovan would have been a huge help just in practice even if we didn’t play him the second half of the year,” he said. “We would be in better shape now, obviously, because we are looking for someone just like him and yeah, it stings a little knowing you had the guy.
“I would have loved to coach this team with Onyx,” he said, “but there’s no point in wishing something happened that didn’t happen, we just have to move on.”
In that regard, he has already signed Devin Johnson, a 6-6 wing player from Lower Columbia Community College in Washington who averaged 14.6 points and 9 rebounds a game for the Red Devils while being named to the all-region squad.
“He’s going to fit right in,” Coleman said, “we need more like him.”
Coleman hopes to sign six players in the recruiting season including at least one certified center of 6-9 or taller height.
Four years into it, Coleman (37-65), hasn’t had the kind of season he had hoped for, but when he inherited a roster of five players six weeks before practice opened in his first season, he need it would be a long-term project.
His record is just a notch under the last five years for former volleyball coach Tino Reyes, dismissed by the school last year after seven seasons. Any future concerns?
“I knew it would be difficult here,” Coleman said, “but I wanted to be a head coach, I thought I’d put in my time and I was ready and I certainly don’t regret coming here, it’s just a process that’s going to take some time.
“Because of our (financial) situation, we can’t turn around a roster in a year or two, we are taking small steps, but we are building. There’s certainly more talent and more depth here than there was when I got here, but it’s not enough; not yet.”
