A lower-tier BracketBusters game can be good for something, after all.
"I think it’s perfect. Perfect timing," Hawaii senior swingman Hauns Brereton said of his team’s matchup with Northern Arizona of the Big Sky Conference on Saturday.
"We can regather ourselves and get back into (the Big West) conference. We can go out and work on what we need to and go from there."
UH players went about picking up the pieces Wednesday in their first full practice since last Saturday’s debilitating 80-71 loss at Pacific. Starting shooting guard Brandon Spearman went down in that one with a severe ankle sprain — the team’s first major health setback this season.
UH gets a break from Big West play this week. However, most of the league was in action on Wednesday night. UH (15-11 overall) remained in a tie for third at9-6, with UC Irvine moving up and Cal Poly sliding down.
Long Beach State (13-2) clinched at least a share of the Big West regular-season title with a 71-65 defeat of UC Davis.
That was all peripheral to the Stan Sheriff Center and the Rainbow Warriors.
Spearman could miss the rest of the season, though he remains hopeful on a return just before the Big West tournament, March 14-16. In the meantime, his absence leaves a sizable hole to fill in the ‘Bows’ rotation, starting with Saturday’s nonconference game against the 10-16 Lumberjacks.
The 6-foot-3 Spearman, the team’s third-leading scorer, is perhaps the team’s best all-around perimeter player. He can affect the game with an occasional 3-pointer or drive to the hoop at one end, and he often defends opponents’ best guards at the other basket.
"He’s been really good for us. So the next couple games, someone’s going to have to fill that role," Brereton said. "I could do that, or somebody else can. There’s a lot of talented players. It just depends on the mismatch in that game, offensively and defensively."
Redshirt freshman guard Brandon Jawato (7.0 ppg, .433 3PT) started off Wednesday’s practice in the first group alongside regulars Jace Tavita, Brereton, Christian Standhardinger and Vander Joaquim. But UH coach Gib Arnold wasted little time in working in freshman forward Isaac Fotu (9.7 ppg, 6.4 rpg) and several other reserves.
"It was a little bit of a reshuffle, but nothing we haven’t done before," Arnold said. "Everybody who is going to play because of Brandon being out, they’ve all been there. They’ve all been in that position. It’s not like we have to invent anything new."
Arnold said the biggest adjustment could come on the defensive end. Spearman was one of the team’s best man-to-man defenders, so an increase in zone is a possibility.
The 6-foot-8 Fotu said he’d be ready for a larger role if Arnold called upon him as part of a larger lineup.
"If we lose another one, that’s three in a row, which will put us in a big hole," Fotu said. "We’re looking at this game as a time to get back up and lift our spirits and bring momentum into the last couple of games of the Big West."
