The Hawaii basketball team — in its 38th season of conference membership — has never played five consecutive conference home games.
That’s about to change.
UH (6-9, 0-2 Big West) opens up a five-game homestand on Saturday against Long Beach State (6-12, 1-1), hoping to rectify a foul first BWC road trip that saw the Rainbow Warriors lose narrowly at Cal State Fullerton, then by 28 points at UC Irvine two days later.
Manoa has never gone 0-3 to start a Big West season.
“This is really big for us as a group, to define our season really,” said freshman guard Matt Owies, who scored a season-high 13 points at UCI. “I know everyone’s excited to play back in front of our fans. Hopefully we can continue to come together as a group and finally put 40 minutes of good basketball together and come up with some wins.”
UH is 6-5 at the Stan Sheriff Center this season. Including the Pearl Harbor Invitational, the Rainbow Warriors will have played 18 of 20 games on Oahu by the time this homestand ends, against UC Santa Barbara on Jan. 28.
The Rainbow Warriors held a high-volume practice in Gym 2 on the lower campus on Tuesday as they set about trying to address their numerous problems against UCI: woeful offense (36.2 percent shooting); porous defense (57.1 percent shooting allowed); subpar rebounding (minus-11); and a lack of composure (2-for-18 first-half 3-point shooting).
UH coach Eran Ganot wasless interested in leaning on the unprecedented bunching of home games (LBSU/Cal State Northridge/UC Davis/UC Riverside/UCSB) as a crutch. He wore a blank expression when the subject came up.
“I’m looking at it like we’re playing a game at home this week, and that’s it,” Ganot said. “Taking them one at a time. Whatever the schedule is, you don’t get into skipping steps like that.”
However, he added: “I just think it’s very unique. Does anyone in our conference have that?”
The answer is no. And only one opponent, CSUN, has four in a row.
Four-game stands, home and away, were common in the WAC of the 1980s. UH played its most recent four-gamer at home in 2013-14, its second year of Big West play.
UH played five straight regular-season WAC games on the road in the 1981-82 season.
“I don’t know if it’s registered, in terms of this five-game stand,” Ganot said. “All your thoughts are, cleaning things up with your team and getting ready for Long Beach, and the fact that we have a couple more practices to do that.”
The ’Bows are still trying to jump-start UCLA transfer Noah Allen, formerly the team’s leading scorer.
Allen’s run of missed field goals reached 18 in the loss at UCI. He went 0-for-2 for a scoreless outing in eight minutes off the bench, dropping his scoring average to 10.4 for the season, including 2.6 over the past five games. A lack of confidence has been evident.
“We’ve had a couple good talks,” said Ganot, who thought Allen had a good practice Tuesday. “I like the fact he’s taken ownership of it. He’s pressing, compounding the problem. He’s a thinker. Sometimes you play too much 2-on-1 in your head.
“Basketball, at the end of the day, you’re at your best when you’re playing off instincts. We believe in him, we have confidence in him. What you saw earlier (in the season) is no fluke. He’s just gotta fight through. Understand it’s going to come around again for him.”
