A well-deserved deep breath for the Hawaii men’s basketball team coincided with the rollover of the New Year — and more important, the start of Western Athletic Conference play.

The breather — two days off from full practice — happened just in time. UH (8-6) opens its final WAC season on Saturday against San Jose State (6-8). Four other WAC teams open play on Thursday.

"It’s kind of a two-edged sword," UH coach Gib Arnold said. "It’s nice you can give them their legs back, but we’re at the point of the season now where we want to keep playing. … You want to make sure that you give them some rest, but you also want to keep going to keep our energy up and keep getting better."

The Rainbow Warriors ended a holiday stretch of five games in 10 days with a closely contested 74-69 New Year’s Eve loss to now-No. 17 UNLV, one of three ranked teams the ‘Bows played in the preconference season.

After its brief break, UH got back to practice with a 3-hour-plus evening session on Tuesday, focused primarily in the halfcourt.

Senior guard Zane Johnson was held out of contact drills (but went in on noncontact, halfcourt sets) because of the separated rib he suffered late in the UNLV game.

"My ribs hurt pretty bad, it’s a little sore, but I think I’m going to be able to play (vs. SJSU)," Johnson said. "Gotta push through it and play, because this is what we’ve been thinking about all year, is winning the WAC, so that starts now."

Surprisingly, Johnson’s ailment was the first real injury of any kind suffered by the team, going back to the preseason.

UH entered the new year playing reasonably well, but there are always aspects to improve on. Here are a few "resolutions," if you will.

» Make free throws matter. At 69 percent, UH’s conversion rate from the stripe has the potential to be problematic in tight conference games.

» Take care of the ball. UH’s 15.9 turnovers per game is at the bottom of the WAC. However, senior Miah Ostrowski has made a difference since rejoining the team with a 41-to-13 count in assists to turnovers. That’s better than a 3-to-1 ratio.

» Hit from deep. Johnson has 40 3-pointers, but anything beyond him was shaky until Hauns Brereton discovered his 3-point stroke with a 4-for-5 game against South Carolina State. Brereton now has 11 on the season at a 34.4 percent clip, while freshman guard Shaquille Stokes has 18 (albeit at 29.5 percent). The rest of the team has four hits.

Arnold offered up a few resolutions of his own: Make the extra pass, have an inside-out attack, have guards box out, and play as a team.

Foreign signees are a maybe for 2011-12

Fall UH commits Orel Lev of Israel and Isaac Fotu of New Zealand are still possibilities to join the Rainbow Warriors over the current semester break.

School starts up again next week, so UH has a few days remaining to get Lev and/or Fotu admitted. Lev, a shooting guard, is believed to have the better odds of the two.

"Nothing definitive yet," Arnold said. "We’re still trying to get them cleared. … I don’t know if the timing’s going to happen quick enough with the NCAA, getting eligible. It takes longer with these foreign kids, but hopefully we’ll get them both, or if not, one of the kids in."

If either or both made it in, they’d likely redshirt the rest of the season but would be able to practice.