Hawaii celebrates Senior Night with big hoops win

By Fred Guman

It’s hard to overstate the turnaround Gib Arnold has engineered in his first season as head coach of the University of Hawaii basketball team.

Consider that he inherited a squad that won just 10 wins last season and was picked to finish dead last in the nine-team Western Athletic Conference.

Add to that the defection of two recruits in December who left because of limited playing time and, just recently, the near-loss of another key player for the same reason.

And there’s more: Following a promising start to the start against admittedly mediocre teams from mediocre conferences, the Rainbows got off to an 0-5 start in the WAC.

But instead of folding, UH has rebounded in impressive fashion, capped off by Saturday’s 76-70 victory over New Mexico State before a Senior Night crowd of about 8,000 at The Stanley.

Leading the way for UH was a couple of players who will return next season. Junior guard Zane Johnson scored 22 points, converting six 3-pointers. And sophomore center Vander Joaquim had 18 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks.

The win was Hawaii’s eighth in 10 games, and improved its records to 17-10 overall and 7-7 and tied for fifth in the WAC as it embarks on a regular-season-ending road trip that includes stops at San Jose State on Thursday and Fresno State on Saturday.

BASEBALL: Hawaii again struggled defensively as No. 6 Texas took advantage of four errors to pull out a 4-3 series-clinching win over the Rainbows on Sunday afternoon at Les Murakami Stadium.

Pi‘ikea Kitamura hit a two-run homer, UH’s first of the season, but the Bows came up short in another ninth-inning comeback, scoring a run and leaving the bases loaded to fall to 3-4. Jeff Van Doornum hit an RBI single, but Conner George hit a line drive to the pitcher, who doubled off Van Doornum at first to end the game.

On Saturday, Hawaii ended a three-game skid by beating the Longhorns 5-4 in a 15-inning marathon, scoring the winning run after David Perterson came home from second following a pair of wild pitches.

UH heads to California for a four-game series against Loyola Marymount beginning on Thursday.

WAHINE HOOPS: The UH women’s basketball team, which has suffered some embarrassingly lopsided loss to Fresno Stat in recent years, gave the visiting second-place Bulldogs more of a challenge yesterday. The Rainbow Wahine’s comeback bid fell short, however, and they dropped an 83-70 decision. Senior point guard Keisha Kanekoa led the Wahine with 16 points and six assists. Hawaii next plays host to Utah State on Thursday.