First things first for Rainbows’ juniors

Players of Hawaii basketball’s junior class say they are content to wait until the end of the season before deciding their futures in response to the NCAA’s recently announced sanctions against the program.

On Dec. 22 the NCAA laid out a postseason ban for UH for the 2016-17 season, among other penalties, as a conclusion to its 26-month investigation into ex-coach Gib Arnold and the university.

By NCAA rule, players with one year of eligibility remaining may transfer off a team banned from the postseason to another Division I program without the usual redshirt penalty.

Four rotation players for first-year coach Eran Ganot meet that criteria: wing Aaron Valdes, forwards Stefan Jankovic and Mike Thomas and center Stefan Jovanovic.

Meanwhile, UH athletic director David Matlin, Ganot and other officials are set to meet today to discuss whether to appeal the NCAA’s ruling and aim for reduced sanctions. UH has until Wednesday to decide.

Even if the appeal is not made, the players say they aren’t rushing into any decisions. UH (11-2) begins Big West Conference play against Cal Poly on Wednesday and is still eligible for the postseason this year. The Rainbow Warriors are off to their best start through 13 games since 2002-03.

“Definitely playing this season out. I mean, it’s hard to get into that,” said the co-captain Thomas, of Woodland Hills, Calif., after Tuesday’s win over Mississippi Valley State. “It’ll throw our whole season off if we start thinking about too much into the future and all that stuff. Right now we’re trying to win games and represent the state as best we can. So that’s about it right now.”

Ganot will lose his starting backcourt of seniors Roderick Bobbitt and Quincy Smith after March, along with reserve forward Sai Tummala. An exodus of the junior class would gut the roster; sophomore Isaac Fleming is the only regular rotation player who is not a senior or junior.

The team’s top two scorers, Valdes and Jankovic, are juniors but are both expected to graduate this spring, muddling things further. They were noncommittal on the prospect of returning for their senior years with the postseason ban in place.

Jankovic (14.1 points per game) said law school appeals to him, but so does playing professionally.

“After the season you talk with your parents, talk to the coaches and figure out what’s best for you,” said Jankovic, of Ontario, Canada. “Like I said, I want to play at the next level; I’m not really thinking about anything else. Whatever’s going to help me play, whether that’s overseas, a shot at the NBA, you name it. That’s my ultimate goal. So that’s all I’m focused on, doing the best I can over here and if that includes grad school here, even maybe not taking a big course load and just focusing on basketball next year, there’s a billion options I could kind of look at.”

The explosive Valdes, who notched the third triple double in program history in a 94-59 win against Howard on Saturday, leads the team with 15.5 ppg. The native of Whittier, Calif., was asked last week if he’d thought about his future beyond this season.

“Not really, I talked to my parents a little bit, but it’s just undecided right now,” Valdes said. “I’m just focused on this team and what we have this year. So, when that time comes at the end of the season then I’ll start looking at the options.”

Off-the-court distractions for these Rainbows are nothing new. In fact, they seem to thrive off them. In response to Arnold’s firing just before the start of the 2014-15 season, they went 22-13 and made the Big West tournament championship game under interim coach Benjy Taylor.

“Just the fact that we stay together the whole time,” the Serbian center Jovanovic said recently in explanation. “We are actually a team and we go through everything together. We keep each other up and hold each other up and that’s how we stay through it. The fact that they announced the NCAA thing didn’t really matter. We take it day by day, we never really think about the end. We just take every day by itself.”