It’s now or never for UH-Hilo’s men’s basketball team, and even that might not be enough.
On Saturday afternoon in Honolulu, the Vulcans, naturally, have to keep both eyes on a Hawaii Pacific team that beat them last weekend in Hilo, but they also have to pull hard for Notre Dame de Namur.
And that could be a problem.
As uneven as UHH (11-14, 9-12) has been on the road this season, a win against the Sharks would be just their third road conquest, the Vuls also need the last-place Argonauts, who have just three wins conference wins, to beat Academy of Art (11-17, 9-12) at home to reach the Pacific West Conference playoffs for the first time.
ND de Namur is coming off a road win at Dominican, but it fell 74-60 in its December matchup against Academy of Art, which owns the tiebreaker against UHH for the sixth and final postseason spot thanks to sweeping the season series.
The Urban Knights-Argonauts game is scheduled to tip at 1 p.m. Hawaii time, while the Vuls and Sharks (10-17, 8-13) will take the court about 3 p.m.
Coach GE Coleman likely will ask his team to block out any pregame distractions, and the Vulcans also will have to block out HPU, which dominated the boards last Saturday (46-27) in winning 62-55 at Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium. The 6-foot-10 Chidozie Ndu grabbed 15 rebounds, 11 on the offensive end.
UHH is in this position because of a three-game losing streak, including an 88-72 loss at Chaminade on Thursday night. Senior Kaleb Gilmore scored 16 of his career-high 23 points in the second half, but the Silverswords shot 56 percent from the field and outrebounded the Vulcans 44-25.
Eliet Donley scored 28 points for the Silverswords, making 11 of his 15 shots.
UHH’s Kupaa Harrison posted 19 points and eight rebounds in his second-to-last college game, and Sasa Vuksanovic finished with 14 points and seven boards.