For both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, a week off at home came at an agreeable time in the 2016-17 schedule. The question is whether those practice sessions solved any problems. ADVERTISING
For both the men’s and women’s basketball teams at the University of Hawaii at Hilo, a week off at home came at an agreeable time in the 2016-17 schedule. The question is whether those practice sessions solved any problems.
The UHH men (2-5 and 1-2 in the Pacific West Conference), are coming off their first home victory and first conference win last Sunday against Notre Dame de Namur, while the women’s team ( 1-4, 1-2 PWC), spent the week looking for more offensive consistency after losing their first two conference games.
When the two teams play Chaminade in the Vulcans’ gym Saturday (5 p.m. women, men’s game to follow approximately 7:30), the men will be trying to reverse the decision from the first meeting between the schools Nov. 30 in Honolulu. The Vulcans were down 38-37 at halftime against their high-scoring, push-the-pace hosts, but came completely apart in the second half, surrendering 57 points while scoring just 33.
“We really needed this week to work on some of things we need to do better, and there’s a list,” GE Coleman said of the men’s squad. “We haven’t been getting to the details very well, it’s all about making the simple play, knowing what a good shot is; it’s the little things.”
Against Chaminade (4-4, 2-1 in PWC), the Vulcans will be playing a powerful offense with five players who can have big nights, led by Rohndel Goodwin, second in the conference in scoring at 21.6 per game (Hilo’s Farris Parker is third, 21.2).
“He’s the leader, but Chaminade, as a group, is as good as you can be offensively at the D-II level,” Coleman said. “Five guards, they spread the floor and wear you out. Goodwin is a shotmaker, a scorer and he will get his 20, he will make some tough shots and we can’t let that get to us; I’m okay with him getting his 20-25, I don’t want him getting 30 or 40 and he can definitely do that.”
Coleman’s view of the Chaminade offense is revealed in the statistics. The teams are almost identical in scoring — Chaminade 78.5, UHH 78.4 — but how they get there is instructive.
Chaminade is at 47 percent on field goal attempts, the Vulcans are at 41 percent. Inside that set of numbers are the shooting stats showing Chaminade has made 234 field goals in eight games. In one fewer game, UHH has made 185 field goal. That’s a 49 field goal difference in just one more game.
“We need to play at our best, obviously,” Coleman said. “They have five guys who are capable of getting off big any night, we need to play our pace and try to contain them defensively.”
David Kaneshiro’s women’s team beat Chaminade (0-3, 0-5 PWC), last month on Oahu, without last year’s leading scorer, sophomore Kim Schmelz, but since then the Vulcans have lost two in a row and at the bottom of that were just 23 assists and 39 turnovers in those two games.
“We have a lot to work on, obviously,” Kaneshiro said, “and this week we didn’t try to do everything, we worked on getting better offensive execution, taking better care of the ball. If we can make steps forward there, it will help a lot.”
Kaneshiro said he still doesn’t know when Schmelz, sidelined with an ankle injury, will be ready to play, but the offense isn’t built for one person.
“The things we do, the way the offense works doesn’t change when Kim isn’t out there,” he said. “They are playing hard, I know that, it’s a good thing, but it isn’t good enough in this conference. You have to play hard, but you have to play with consistency. We need to be more consistent.”
