‘Bows play on strengths but work on flaws

Hawaii might have a perfect record through three games, but the Rainbow Warriors fully realize their play hasn’t been flawless.

UH played well enough to sweep its way through the Outrigger Resorts Rainbow Classic for a 3-0 season start. Still, the Rainbows will try to rectify some areas of struggle when they take on Nicholls State of the Southland Conference at the Stan Sheriff Center tonight. UH tips off about 30 minutes after the Rainbow Wahine basketball team concludes its 5 p.m. game against Washington State.

"We’re always big on identifying where we’ve been strong and continue there," UH coach Eran Ganot said. "Identify where we’re weak and make sure we fix it. Our go-to is going to always be, go back to work."

The Rainbows were effective in getting scoring contributions from multiple sources — five players are averaging double figures so far, led by Aaron Valdes’ 16.0 per game. They took care of the ball (12.0 turnovers per game) and battled strong on the glass (rebounding margin of plus-1.7).

However, their free-throw shooting has been subpar — 60.0 percent — and nearly cost them in a 76-75 win against Nevada. UH resolved that would be a continued area of emphasis in practice.

"The free-throw shooting, fairly clearly, was not an aberration," Ganot said. "It was not a one-game thing. It’s a recurring theme, and the way the game is being officiated now, that’s going to be paramount."

Explosive Wolf Pack point guard Marqueze Coleman also exposed some trouble protecting the rim. Coleman attacked the basket continuously off the dribble and scored 32 points in the second half. Ganot said he can either go to a zone defense sooner or employ aggressive trapping tactics to take the ball out of the scorer’s hands should other foes attack the same way.

Nicholls State, of the small city of Thibodaux, La., has made the trek out to Honolulu just once before, and lost by 18 in 1998.

Colonels coach J.P. Piper is still trying to figure out what he has. Nicholls, a 10-19 team a season ago, lost by 47 at Florida State to open the season, then routed Mobile, a non-Division I team, by 22 this week. He’s hoping this game is a little more revealing.

"It’s hard to really know where we’re at," said Piper, in his 11th season. "It’ll be an interesting test for us. No matter what happens, we’ll learn a lot about ourselves, which I think will help us prepare for conference. (The Southland) is a guard league. I don’t know if there’s a group of guards as good as (Hawaii’s) in our league."

Ja’Dante’ Frye, a 6-foot-4 forward, leads Nicholls with 17 points per game. The Colonels also have two 7-footers, senior Kyle Caudill (300 pounds) and junior Liam Thomas (200), but have employed them only sparingly so far; they haven’t yet appeared at the same time.

UH expects plenty of 2-3 zone defense from Nicholls. The Rainbows are expected to deploy the same starting lineup: Roderick Bobbitt and Quincy Smith in the backcourt, Valdes at small forward and big men Mike Thomas and Stefan Jankovic. Sai Tummala and Isaac Fleming have added scoring punch off the bench.

Jankovic went for a double-double in the season opener, but struggled to score in the next two games and was displeased with himself. He’s practiced at power forward instead of center in recent days, with Thomas playing the 5.

"In the game I was doing a lot of (perimeter) stuff I know I’m good at, but I wasn’t getting reps in practice," Jankovic said. "So Coach has recognized that …. It’s playing to our strengths. Mike is undersized (6-7), but he’s really good down there. I’m more comfortable outside, and it doesn’t change anything defensively. I think I was successful guarding the post players on opposing teams, and rebounding the ball."