BWC foes turn tables when facing ’Bows second time around

Second verse same as the first?

Not when it comes to the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team, it seems.

The second time around the Big West Conference this season is proving to be a whole lot tougher for the Rainbow Warriors than the first run as their deficiencies catch up with them.

After going 4-3 the first time through the lineup of Big West opponents the ’Bows have stumbled badly to start the second and there is the rising question of whether they will be able to get back up.

Of the three opponents UH has seen the second time around, the ’Bows are 0-3 and the differences have been revealing.

UH beat Cal Poly (57-45), UC Santa Barbara (77-76) and Cal State Northridge (65-46) last month.

But this month it has fallen to Cal Poly (78-64), UCSB (84-82 in overtime) and, then, Saturday tumbled to CSUN, 77-71. That’s a considerable turnaround in fortunes in such a short period.

That has added up to a five-game losing streak, the ’Bows’ longest in this their six years of Big West membership, a 4-6 conference record and overall 13-10 mark.

The immediate suggestion is that opponents have learned well from the first encounters and made significant adjustments. Or, in the case of UC Riverside, which has played UH once and gets its second shot Saturday, the Highlanders have geared their game to what they have seen that has worked — and what hasn’t — across the spectrum of their conference brethren.

Unlike the nonconference season in which opponents see UH only once and several, such as Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Prairie View and Howard catch UH as part of long, extensive road trips, there is little familiarity and not much time to plot schemes.

Head coach Eran Ganot and his staff have, for the most part, done a good job game-planning against their opponents, putting their players in a position to win and it showed through the first time around when UH managed to put itself in the thick of the early conference race.

But this is not a hugely talented team, even by modest standards of the Big West, which is ranked 22nd among 32 Division I conferences based on RPI.

Their weaknesses, 3-point shooting among them, have been well noted and addressed, if not exploited. Likewise their strengths are being worked around or mitigated.

And it showed as UH, which blocked four shots the first time around, didn’t manage any Saturday.

For example, Mike Thomas was a game changer at CSUN scoring 24 points in January. Saturday CSUN made it more difficult and Thomas managed 14 points, the bulk of them from the free-throw line.

UH’s defense, which held CSUN to 28 percent shooting the first time out (including 25 percent from the 3-point line) was scorched for 65 percent shooting (including 47 percent from 3-point range) Saturday.

Part of that is just having a hot hand on the right night, of course, but there is also an element of getting the right matchup or positioning to take the shot.

By the same token, the Matadors’ Tavrion Dawson and Micheal Warren combined for 21 points in the first meeting but teamed up for 44 to steal the show — and the game — Saturday.

So, it will be interesting to see where the ’Bows go from here in the six (four on the road) remaining conference regular-season games.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.