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Alumni of Arkansas-Pine Bluff will be glad to see the Golden Lions are on the University of Hawaii men’s basketball schedule this season for the fourth time in six years.
But everybody else, especially fans who had hoped the new regime in Manoa was going to produce a more exciting, challenging schedule for the Rainbow Warriors, should be disappointed by the initial offering.
UH returns the foundation of a team that went 22-13 — the most victories by the program in 13 years — but the schedule is more befitting a squad that is being rebuilt from the team manager on up.
Of the 10 nonconference games UH is responsible for scheduling, it booked one team that had a winning record in Division I for 2014-15, Coastal Carolina (24-10), and two Division II opponents, Hilo and Hawaii Pacific.
At first glance, it is hard to see how UH doesn’t win at least 20 games and, perhaps, another Hugh Durham Midseason Coaching Award with this schedule. Though its Ratings Percentage Index, an important consideration for postseason selection, figures to suffer mightily.
Overall, the eight D-I teams had an average RPI of 271 (out of 351) and a .384 winning percentage.
Three other games on the 29-game regular-season slate are lined up by ESPN Events, which owns and operates the Diamond Head Classic, and 16 conference games are set by the Big West.
So, please tell us this is a rookie year anomaly by head coach Eran Ganot not to be repeated as standard operating procedure.
To be sure he had a lot of pukas to fill on a schedule he inherited almost five months ago. But in also canceling five games that had been scheduled by his predecessor, Benjy Taylor, Ganot had a wide-open canvas to work from and it still ended up with four home games against teams that lost 20 or more games in 2014-15.
It is understandable — even laudatory — that UH wanted to limit the number of missed class days for its players. So, many of us accepted the explanation for the $120,000 UH coughed up to buy out its contract for the Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational in which the ‘Bows were to have played San Diego State (27-9) and Cal (18-15) on the road and two other teams on a neutral floor in Vegas.
Part of the tradeoff was supposed to be some attractive games at home to help recoup a good portion of the moolah. Some of it will be made up by playing Texas Tech in Lubbock and a money game on the road in 2016-17.
But Nicholls State (10-19), Arkansas-Pine Bluff (12-20), Mississippi Valley State (6-26) and Howard (16-16) will be hard-pressed to produce big box office numbers at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The two most attractive pre-Diamond Head home opponents are Coastal Carolina at 7 p.m. on a Sunday night (Nov. 15) and Nevada at 11 p.m. on Monday (Nov. 16).
You might wonder if this is why UH waited until nearly two weeks after new season tickets went on sale (and almost two months after the deadline for renewals) to finally announce its schedule.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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