UH men’s basketball team needs to lay off the cupcakes

As the University of Hawaii goes about filling out its men’s basketball schedule for next season, keep the figure 208 in mind.

That’s the Rainbow Warriors’ average strength of schedule over the past five seasons, according to the widely used Sagarin ratings.

Considering 345 teams played on the Division I level this year, it isn’t exactly a flexing of the muscles to brag about.

What it should be, however, is inspiration to build a more appealing and increasingly competitive schedule for the 2012-13 season that opens in eight months.

The ’Bows make their move into the Big West Conference next season and the hope is that with the change in neighborhoods UH will take the opportunity to spruce up the schedule for a number of reasons.

Now, nobody is saying they have to play an NBA Northwest Division slate, but frequent trips down the tomato-can aisle need not be part of the equation, either.

Not with three consensus starters — all seniors — and five regulars due back from a 16-16 team. Not with the ’Bows taking aim at a Big West title in their inaugural season.

Actually the move to the Big West should provide impetus to raise the caliber of the nonconference schedule. For the moment, the Big West lines up as a one-bid league for NCAA Tournament purposes. Which means if UH has designs on something other than a buy-your-way-in postseason role — as it should — then it is going to need a requisite Ratings Percentage Index profile in case it doesn’t win the league tournament and automatic berth that comes with it.

The return of North Carolina A&T, South Carolina State, New Orleans and too many others of that ilk won’t cut it.

With what is likely to be a 16-game conference schedule, plus the three games the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic provides, UH will have 10-11 games to fill and needs to make its choices count.

Head coach Gib Arnold pretty much played the schedule he inherited his first year, one that ranked 220th and — from the looks of it — had been calculated to help get the previous regime a contract extension had they still been around for 2010-11. Then, in 2011-12, coaches left too many loose ends on the schedule and needed associate athletic director Carl Clapp to jump in at the 11th hour just to fill out the lineup and avoid the prospect of having three non-Division I opponents. As it was, the schedule included two non-Division I foes and ranked 190th.

Much more is expected for next season and UH needs to make it a “payoff year” both on the court and at the box office. Not the kind that New Orleans (2,945 through the turnstiles) or Eastern Washington (3,511) provided this season, either.

The point is underlined in Arnold’s contract, where it says he can qualify for an automatic rollover of a year on his annual $344,000 deal if the ’Bows win 18 games in the regular season (or 19 including postseason) “and attain an end of the season Sagarin strength of schedule ranking of 185 or better … ”

Going into year three, doing significantly better than No. 185 shouldn’t be too much to ask.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.