Warriors looking to make a move up Big West standings
It will be a rare, one-game Big West Conference road trip for the University of Hawai’i basketball team this week, and a still-important game at that.
The Warriors departed Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon for Los Angeles. They will play at Long Beach State in what amounts to a game for third place in the Big West.
Hawai’i is 19-8 overall – and seeking its first 20-win season since the 2003-04 season – and currently in fourth place in the conference at 8-5. Long Beach State is 12-14 and 8-4. A victory by the Warriors would give them a split with the 49ers, but Hawai’i would win a tie-breaker because Long Beach State is already 0-4 against league leaders UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara (Hawai’i is 1-2).
“We control 120 minutes of this season,” Hawaii head coach Gib Arnold said. “We control the 40 minutes at Long Beach, then we control the 40 minutes at Santa Barbara, and the 40 minutes against Fullerton. Our job is to play our best basketball those three games. If we play well, I wouldn’t be shocked if things end up in our favor when the season’s over.”
Realistically, the Warriors could finish anywhere from second to sixth by the time the regular-season is completed on March 8. A victory this Thursday, though, would go a long way toward keeping them in the top four for the rest of the season.
It might help that the Warriors have just one game to focus on this week, as they have a bye on Saturday (Long Beach State will play at Cal State Fullerton on Saturday).
“Obviously, we’ll concentrate exclusively on Long Beach State, which helps, but not a whole lot of things different,” Arnold said. “You usually put most of your energy into that first game.”
Here are the remaining games for the top six teams in the Big West:
UC Irvine (9-3): vs. UC Santa Barbara; vs. Cal Poly; at Cal State Fullerton; vs. UC Davis
UC Santa Barbara (9-3): at UC Irvine; at UC Davis; vs. Hawai’i; at Cal Poly
Long Beach State (8-4): vs. Hawai’i; at Cal State Fullerton; at Cal State Northridge; vs. UC Riverside
Hawai’i (8-5): at Long Beach State; at UC Santa Barbara; vs. Cal State Fullerton
Cal State Northridge (6-7): at Cal State Fullerton; at UC Riverside; vs. Long Beach State
Cal Poly (6-7): at UC Davis; at UC Irvine; vs. UC Santa Barbara
Game 28 Tipoff Notes
Who: Hawai’i (19-8, 8-5 BWC) at Long Beach State (12-14, 8-4 BWC)
When: Thursday, Feb. 27, 5:30 p.m. (Hawai’i time)
Where: The Pyramid (4,200) – Long Beach, Calif.
Television: Fox Sports Prime Ticket (Oceanic channel 228)
Radio: Live on ESPN 1420 AM. Neighbor islands can listen live on KNUI on Maui, KHLO in Hilo, KKON in Kona and KTOH on Kaua’i.
Audio Webcast: Live audio streaming on espn1420am.com
Live Stats: Live in-game stats are available at LongBeachState.com
Focus,.play team D ..control Caffey best can and all starters in double figures UH wil win.
Guys play to win .get Cali win!!
Go Bows !!
😀
Controlling Caffey and Lamb will be huge keys to the game. No one could stop Caffey in the last match up at SSC.
LBSU wants to get to the paint and to the FT line. Crowd the pain and force them to beat you from the 3pt line. LBSU doesn’t have many shooters.
Win or lose doesn’t mean that much as long as UH stays in the top 4 seeds for the tournament. I just want to see some defensive adjustments to prepare for the BW Tournament. UH is not a great onball defensive team and not great in the zone, so there are a bunch of things that need to be worked on. The lesser BW teams have been able to generate a lot of open shots vs UH’s zone, but haven’t been able to knock them down.
As long as UH stays in the top 4, they won’t face the best teams until the semi-finals. The order of seeds won’t matter much I expect UH, LBSU, UCSB, and UCI to handle their business in the 1st round.
Don’t forget about the beast Dan Jennings.
Tyler Lamb was a Top 40 player coming into college, he started out at UCLA. He struggles to shoot 40% though. Other sites are still saying he’s their best pro prospect.
Long Beach barely beat HPU (71-59), then lost 9 games at start of season. That was without Lamb.
Mike Caffey turns the ball over quite a lot, and only shoots 64% FT.
I think UH better hope they don’t face Cal Poly.
At this point in conference play, I don’t feel like UH is playing for much. Only way anything changes is UH loses out and one or both of the bottom two win out. And they’re all around the middle so they’d be playing each other anyways. However, I’d love to see Hawaii finish at 11 – 5, or even 10 – 6 would be pretty sweet. I can see them winning out, especially with their road success this season. Could be the first time that they actually have a better road record than home in conference play, wouldn’t that be something?? Glad this one’s on TV though, I can actually DVR it!
UH is playing to stay in the top 4 to get a bye in the BWC and most importantly to keep the momentum going into the post season. I hope the team can stay focused with all the attention around the Akana situation.
I love this team, great student athletes playing as one. Each year we are getting better and expectations higher. NCAA bid should still be their goal, but the NIT is going to be very, very difficult to achieve, unless we win the conference title. Unlike years in the past, there are close to 15 teams from the West Coast with better rankings than us. Traditionally, the NIT only takes about 6 teams from the West. The BOWZ need to treat every game now like it is one and done. The only games that will boost our rankings now are against LBSU, UCSB and Irvine. Put your heart and soul into playing defense and take it personal to keep you guy from scoring…play with heart and leave nothing on the floor. GO BOWZ.
Gib keeps guys positive, Benjy, Fish, Chris, help team keep focused. All the current active roster guys want to win, see if can run table through last 3 regular season games, and go 3-0 and get NCAA bid.
Now, it is public, the situation with assistant, very, very sad. Hope it does not impact team, athletes current, and future, plus whatever other negatives. UH on the rise, want to keep it that way.
Would be horrible if UH qualified for the Big One, dance, and then …well you know. hope it is singular, and does not affect program or this team. They have worked so hard, AND we die hard, a couple of thousand at least, want UH to finish well. Gib runs a good program. Interesting, the annual current and one RS picture, take a look.
Okay, nuff said, about that, without mentioning anything, Go Bows, just play for yourselves, the team, and the Fans, we LOVE you guys!
Go and win as many games as POSSIBLE! Get twenty-twenty four wins at least this year!
Go Bows!
Hope everything works out!
Cant give them 60% on fg percentage like last game, force them to shoot the three,plug up the lanes, no freeway to the basket like the last time, that was unacceptable, run a tough 2-3 zone on the Beach!!
Very confident team play like they did against Irvine on road
They win …defensive stops prime time…shoot excellent from line and field last few minutes. .the guys win..
UH play well in Cali..at least go 2-1 rest of regular season. .UH primed to get to championship game of BWC TOURNAMENT..
ONE GAME ..GREAT EFFORT..NO DISTRACTIONS. .UH will do weel over hopefully next 6 games!!
Do well over last. 6 games..keep eyes on NCAA Bid !!
Looking forward to the California families coming out in full force to support the team. Along with the Spearmans coming out from the cold and sporting their bright green tshirts so we all can see them sitting behind the Hawaii bench.
It shouldn’t be any wonder why the team plays so well on the road. The family foundation in California and from the parents that can fly to the west coast makes it feel like home. How fortunate we are to feel at home in CA and on our home court.
Play like men. Win like Warriors. Come home with number 20.
UH 83 LBSU 77. Bows win!!
Uhfanzonly1.
Go Bows.