After missing a game because of a “personal” issue, guard Leland Green rejoined the University of Hawaii basketball team this week.
The Rainbow Warriors are hopeful their defiant defense also will return for Sunday’s game against Mississippi Valley State.
“It doesn’t happen overnight,” coach Eran Ganot said of fixing the ’Bows’ season-long lapses on defense. “The reality of the situation is we have to chip away. That’s kind of the mentality right now. You look in the mirror, whether as a person or a team, that’s who we are. We have to own that. We don’t want to be that way, but it’s the reality of where we are, so we’ve got to chip away. It’s going to take some time, so we’re going to continue to work on it with that expectation.”
In the past five games, opponents are averaging 9.4 offensive rebounds, 30.4 points in the paint, and 12.0 second-chance points. Following last week’s feel-bad victory over UH Hilo, Ganot bristled about the ’Bows’ inconsistency in defending the point of attack and the tardiness in the back-side rotations. The defensive deficiencies are accentuated in comparison to previous seasons.
“We’ve been consistently good (the previous three seasons), whether we’ve been an elite defensive team or a really good defensive team,” Ganot said. “That’s been a hallmark for us. … We do have quite a few new guys, but that’s no excuse. The reality is, starting from me, we haven’t done a good enough job emphasizing our foundation, which is to defend and rebound.”
In this week’s practices, the ’Bows have worked on fortifying their first line of defense.
“Our big thing is to protect the paint, which means don’t give up dribble penetration,” said Brocke Stepteau, who usually guards the opposing point guard. “Once teams dribble penetrate, it opens up everything — open 3s, open layups.”
The ’Bows also are trying to improve their communication, such as shouting out if a screen is set behind a defender.
Because the ’Bows are mostly in man-to-man coverage, Stepteau said, “when somebody gets beat, there has to be somebody to help. And then it’s like, who’s going to help the helper? If somebody says they’ve got ‘help,’ you’ve got to hear that and help (guard) his man. We don’t have that right now. But I think we’re going to keep chipping away and get there.”
Post player Zigmars Raimo said a key to rotational defense is being active.
“It’s flying around,” Raimo said. “You can’t just say, ‘you have to be there’ and ‘you have to be there.’ If four guys are doing their job and one guy isn’t, they’re going to have wide-open shots. All five guys have to be ready to rotate or else they’re going to score on us.”
