With Buggs back, ‘Bows capable at point-guard position

Hawaii basketball’s point guard controversy could last well beyond tonight’s homestand-opening matchup against Prairie View A&M.

A strong first half at Utah earned freshman Drew Buggs a second-half start in what became an 80-60 loss for UH (4-2) on Saturday. Buggs started the first four games of the year, struggled and gave up the reins to veteran Brocke Stepteau.

Stepteau was quiet in 15 minutes against the Utes, while Buggs scored a season-high 14 points on 5-for-10 shooting with three assists, two turnovers, a block and a steal. UH coach Eran Ganot credited Buggs for his “engagement and approach” to get back in the mix.

“I think we have two guys capable of starting at the point guard position,” Ganot said. “At times the game can dictate that, but they’re both going to play a lot. … You’ve seen at times, we’ve played them together recently.”

Buggs called the Utah game a “learning experience,” but still a confidence-builder.

“Just being ready for whatever Coach asks me to do, just trying to use that game as a jump to make it an ever bigger jump going forward for the rest of the season,” Buggs said.

The Panthers (2-5) of the SWAC visit for the first of seven straight home games for UH in December.

Guard Gary Blackston (16.0 ppg, 6.4 rpg) and wing Zachary Hamilton (17.3 ppg, 38.6 3FG%) are the Panthers’ claws. Guard Dennis Jones (11.7 ppg) adds a little bite, making his first start in a 69-57 loss at New Mexico State on Sunday.

The Panthers hunt turnovers and can change their look depending on an opponent’s weakness.

In UH’s case, they might pack the paint relentlessly until the ’Bows prove they can hit an outside shot. They couldn’t in the thin air of Salt Lake City, shooting 4-for-22 on 3-pointers to drop their season accuracy to 25 percent and NCAA long-range ranking to 347 (of 351 teams).

With that kind of marksmanship, it hardly mattered that UH’s ball control was improved; it committed a season-low 10 turnovers against the Utes. Leading rebounder and assist man Jack Purchase is 2-for-22 on 3s in the past four games, and has missed 20 of his past 21 shots overall going back to the second half against Troy on Nov. 13.

Prairie View tops out at 6 feet 9 but came close to a road upset at another Big West school, UC Santa Barbara, on Nov. 24. The Panthers led in the final few minutes before losing 69-66.

The Panthers are in the midst of a 13-game road trip, an undertaking not uncommon for member schools of the financially strapped SWAC.

Panthers coach Byron Smith has optimism that won’t be the case forever.

Smith took over the East Texas program midway through the 2015-16 season. The former University of Houston player had a two-year stint as a Texas A&M assistant, but his résumé also includes this quirk — he was head coach of the Harlem Globetrotters in 2002-03, when he was about 30.

“I do think there’s going to come a time when we don’t have to go out and do 13, 14 nonconference money games, ‘buy’ games if you will,” Smith said. “We can maybe cut that down to maybe eight or nine, and then have four of five games at home, get your fan base engaged a little bit more. They only see us on the 29th this year, of December. Then we go right into conference after that.”

“I’m a bit of a dreamer. I was talking to a colleague, wouldn’t it be nice one day if the NCAA came in and subsidized some of the lower-resource conferences, the SWAC and the MEAC … to be able to cut back on so many buy games. You look at it, there’s so much money going around with TV contracts. I’m sure it can be done. It probably won’t be. But you can dream, and think. … Maybe that will come to be one day.”

UH has never lost to a SWAC school in 21 games played.