Some of the biggest shots in Hawaii’s basketball history have come from 3-point range

Trevor Ruffin’s banker from the top of the key against BYU. Tes Whitlock’s prayer from the wing the next year vs. the hated Cougars. Bobby Nash pulling up from way downtown on a busted play to stun Oral Roberts at the horn.

Those are some of the iconic 3-point shots in Rainbow Warriors basketball history, moments etched in the memories of the players who launched them, their teammates, opponents and fans alike.

Some of the best UH teams and players, though, turned to the 3-ball for sustained success spanning seasons and tournament runs.

Live by the 3 and die by the 3? These guys didn’t just live — they thrived.

When the 3-point arc was officially installed by the NCAA for the 1986-87 season, the Frank Arnold-led Rainbows weren’t quite sure how to implement it; only 11.2 percent of their shots were attempted from behind that newfangled arc (compared to 17.1 percent for opponents) for a team that went 7-21.

To underscore how much the game has changed, this season’s Rainbow Warriors have taken nearly 45 percent of their shots from 3, by far the highest rate in program history. Three times so far in 2018-19, Eran Ganot’s Rainbows — who run a four-out offense emphasizing spacing and shooting — attempted more 3s than 2s in a game, a previously unheard of notion.

“It’s completely different,” said Zane Johnson, who played in Manoa from 2010 to 2012 and was the career leader in 3s (180) until forward Jack Purchase broke his record on Feb. 16. “But you could say the same thing from 10 years before I played. It was different.“

Johnson, at 6 feet 6, had a size advantage over most perimeter players, but would still look to score inside from time to time — two-thirds of his shots were 3s. He congratulated Purchase, who has attempted about 80 percent of his career shots from downtown.

“The game’s always evolving,” said Johnson, now a Manhattan resident. “But yeah, from my time at UH (on staff), the system they run, it’s a lot of 3s, dribble-drives to create open shots — for 3s. Because obviously if you hit a high clip of 3s, you’re going to have a good chance to win the game. So I mean, it’s definitely going to change over time. Who knows what’ll happen years from now.”

By contrast, Chris Gaines, the premier scorer in program history, who debuted right as the 3-point line did, was most comfortable from mid-range. Gaines shot it only selectively from outside, making a team-high 19 that first year.

Usage of 3s bottomed out to 8 percent in 1989-90 before coach Riley Wallace began to embrace it. When change came, it came drastically and dramatically. It was personified in Ruffin, a 6-foot-1 guard from Buffalo, N.Y., with an itchy trigger finger. When Ruffin arrived in 1992, he needed just two years to obliterate every 3-point record Manoa had to that point.

In 1993-94, Ruffin became the first UH player to attempt 200 or more 3s in a season. Prior to that, Phil Lott had the high of 126.

Then-KFVE (now Spectrum Sports) color commentator Artie Wilson played at UH with the Fabulous Five and Tom Henderson teams of the early 1970s, when close-range shots were valued over all else; there was no tangible reward for shooting from 20 feet over doing it from 2. He considered Dwight Holiday, Bob Nash and Boyd Batts the best outside shooters of his era, when they had to be.

But Ruffin was a revelation.

“Trevor Ruffin had one of the prettiest strokes as a shooter. He looked like a shooter,” said Wilson, who called him the best off-the-dribble 3-point shooter in UH history. “Some guys knocked down shots, but Trevor looked good taking shots.”

Ruffin went on to make 37 percent of his 383 NBA 3-point shots as a reserve for a season each with the Suns and 76ers. He said he didn’t appreciate until later what a departure it was from convention — and jokes that he wishes he was born a decade later, to play when the long ball really took off. The 3-point line was only introduced his senior year of high school.

“Trying to stay on the floor, that’s all I was thinking about,” Ruffin, now an Atlanta resident, said with a laugh.

“A lot of my pull-up 3s on the break, they would be like, ‘No Trevor no, good shot.’ But now, they recommend it. I took some shots, you can’t take too many of those or you’d be sitting next to Coach. But I practiced them all the time. It was a good way to get a shot off quick, because I always had a taller person guarding me. I was like, ‘OK, let me get this in transition, and they won’t be expecting it.’ I utilized it for that, but also, I guess I kind of worked outside-in instead of inside-out. I would shoot 3s to get to a layup. I kind of worked it like that.”

UH rode Ruffin’s hot hand, and those of teammates John Molle, Jarinn Akana, Phil Handy and Kalia McGee, to a stunning 1994 WAC tournament championship win over BYU in Salt Lake City. They shot 12-for-23 on 3s to earn UH’s first NCAA Tournament berth in 22 years.

Usage dipped a little through the Dynamic Duo years of Anthony Carter and Alika Smith — Smith was a dead-eye marksman, but Carter, a superb playmaker, was a selective 3-point shooter. It then ramped back up with the heavily international teams of 2000-01 and 2001-02, still the only back-to-back NCAA Tournament teams in program history. The second of those teams, which won a then-record 27 games, used the long ball collectively in a way that hadn’t been seen out of the flex-motion offense.

Predrag Savovic — the guard from Yugoslavia whose all-encompassing “I am Savo” explanation of his feats begat a fan craze — recalled fondly the team chemistry of those days.

“It was unique,” Savovic said of the flex during a phone interview from Spain, where he is the CEO of the club Zaragoza in the country’s top hoops league, Liga Endesa. “And with Coach Wallace, we ran it very well. We had a very intelligent group of guys. They were good set-ups for us to take those shots and knock it down. Lots of practice though.”

The end of the 2000-01 season served as a coming-out party for that group. They still have the program record for 3s attempted, 33, at Tulsa in the 2001 WAC tournament.

The next season, Savovic (.391), Carl English (.399), Mike McIntyre (.382), and Mindaugas Burneika (.370) truly came into their own as a 3-point-shooting unit. As a team, UH made 38 percent of them that year, the second-highest clip for a Rainbows season, and the most remarkable given the number of attempts (a then-record 634, or 19.2 hoists per game).

“I remember Coach Wallace and (then-assistant) Scott Rigot would have us tested,” Savovic said. “We had a test, written test, on different positions. What one guy would do, what the other guy would do, how we have to behave and react if the ball goes right, if the ball goes up. To the post. If you don’t receive it, what the other guy (does). So we had to know, position and movement of all the players on the team. It was pretty amazing, actually. We enjoyed it, the flex offense.”

Savovic is still the only player in UH history to lead the team in 3-pointers made for three straight years (as well as 3-pointers attempted). But there was still an influx of talented 3-point shooters in the 2000s like Michael Kuebler, Matt Lojeski and Bobby Nash. Julian Sensley had the ability to stretch the floor as a 6-9 big man who could shoot from outside.

UH’s most recent NCAA Tournament team, the 2015-16 squad, was not the most efficient 3-point-shooting squad — making 32.2 percent — but got it done with sheer volume, attempting the most 3s of any Rainbows season, 737. Versatile forward Stefan Jankovic was teamed with capable shooters Aaron Valdes, Roderick Bobbitt and Sai Tummala. Reflecting the modern game, almost every player to see the floor had to be respected from behind the arc.

So what will be the next 3-point record to fall?

>> No ’Bow has made 100 triples in a season. Johnson came the closest with his 98 in 2010-11.

>> Ruffin’s 10 treys (in 11 attempts) against Louisville in the 1993 Rainbow Classic still stands as the individual single-game record.

>> The team record for 3s in a game (14) was set and matched by the 2001-02 team and has been tied three times in the past four years, including once this season (at Long Beach State).

They, too, are likely only a matter of time.