Heading into a Saturday night practice in the Vulcans’ gym, Hawaii Hilo men’s basketball coach found himself unable to answer a basic question when he came up blank on a starting lineup for Sunday’s first home game of the season.
Heading into a Saturday night practice in the Vulcans’ gym, Hawaii Hilo men’s basketball coach found himself unable to answer a basic question when he came up blank on a starting lineup for Sunday’s first home game of the season.
“I can’t tell you,” Coleman said, following a debilitating two-game trip to Oahu where he saw team dismantled by Chaminade and Hawaii Pacific. “We will see who brings it to practice, I’m completely open about who we put out there.”
The UHH women (1-3, 1-1 in the Pacific West Conference), open the matinee doubleheader that serves as the home debut for both teams, with a 1 p.m. tipoff against Notre Dame de Namur (3-5, 1-0), followed by the UH men (1-5, 0-2) and the Argonauts (1-5, 0-1) at 3:30.
“What I do know,” Coleman said, “is that something has to change. We are not a good basketball team right now not from any perspective. We do not have one single thing we are doing well right now, I mean, offense, defense, the transition game, rebounding, you name it, we are not doing it.”
The Vulcans are 1-5, not what Coleman and his squad expected, but it was the last two game that hurt.
Previously, UHH lost a tough, competitive game at Seattle Pacific, fell to a good St. Martins team in Lacey, Wash., then took a thumping from UH-Manoa.
Nobody wants to lose, but Coleman was accepting of those defeats, except for the loss to Manoa in which he felt a lack a competitive fire. That competitive misconduct seemed to extend into the first two Pacific West Conference games at Chaminade, a 95-70 loss in a game that was up for grabs at halftime, and at Hawaii Pacific, a 104-78 loss in a contest that was essentially over at halftime.
In the second half against Chaminade (a 57-33 deficit), and the first half against HPU (56-28), the Vulcans were outscored by a combined 113-61.
“It’s inexcusable,” Coleman said. “Yes, we played two very good teams on the road, but we barely played little more than a half of the kind of basketball we need to play.
“We have a lot of new players, obviously, and maybe we all thought we would be better than this, but none of that matters, because of the way we have played. I don’t care if it’s the same team or a new team or whatever, until you do the little things we work on — do them the right way — then it doesn’t matter who you have out there, you won’t be successful.”
Coleman recruited for height and experience over the offseason, but his bigger lineup hasn’t helped much on the boards. UHH is being out rebounded by 6.2 boards per game and through two games, it is minus-13.8 in scoring margin, last in the conference.
Worst of all perhaps were the 3-point shooting and turnover statistics from the last two games that seemed to completely collapse on the Vulcans in areas they figured to be strong. With the top returning 3-point shooter in the conference, senior Parker Farris, and the smart leadership of junior transfer point guard Ryley Callaghan, those two parts of the offense figured only to improve.
Instead, UHH was just 13-for-36 in 3-point shots and had 27 turnovers in those two games. Callaghan can hardly be blamed after just two turnovers in each game, but the 23 other lost possessions? That’s an issue. Farris lost his long-range edge on Oahu, making just 3 of 13 attempts from beyond the arc. After six games, he is shooting 28 percent from that distance after achieving .395 from 3-point range last year.
“You can pick out anything and say it’s a problem and you’d be right,” Coleman said. “We haven’t done anything well yet.”
Winning opportunity: The UHH women’s team can post a winning record for the first time in a while in conference play when they meet the Argos, granted it’s only the third game of the season.
Senior post Asia Smith has been a big help for the front line after sitting out a redshirt year last season. She is averaging 9.8 points and 8 rebounds per game, her scoring second to Kim Schmelz, her rebounding tops on the team.
Still, the Vulcans have been anemic offensively. Last year they averaged 53.9 points per game, 290th among the 300 DII schools. At this point, they are averaging only 47 points a game. Other issues that need addressing are turnovers (21 per game), and assists (10.3).
“We’re not scoring very well at all,” said coach David Kaneshiro, following his team’s Saturday practice, “but it’s only been four games so you can’t make too much of it. We had to focus, with a short (preparation time in Saturday’s practice), on how to attack Notre Dame’s defense, they’ve been getting 20 turnovers a game.”
Kaneshiro said Schmelz, after missing the Hawaii Pacific game, with an ankle injury, will also miss the home opener.