Warrior Insider

Some losses are harder to forget than others. The University of Hawai’i basketball team has not forgotten a 92-83 home loss to Long Beach State last month, and the Warriors get a chance to do something about on Thursday.

The Warriors will face the 49ers in a game for third place in the Big West Conference at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach, Calif. It is scheduled to start at 5:30 p.m. and will be televised on Fox Sports Prime Ticket (Oceanic channel 228).

“Yeah, that’s a game we’ve been looking forward to,” junior guard Garrett Nevels said. “We’re going to be ready for it.”

Hawai’i is 19-8 overall and in fourth place in the Big West at 8-5; Long Beach State is 12-14 and in third place at 8-4.

The last time the teams met, the 49ers shot 60 percent from the field, and junior guard Mike Caffey scored a career-high 29 points on 10-of-14 shooting.

“He averages nearly 17 (points) a game, so you can’t hold him out,” UH assistant coach Scott Fisher said. “But you just have to make him work a little harder. We fouled him a little too much and he got a few too many free looks, where he was kind of loose outside the 3-point line, and he was able to drive too easily.”

Caffey leads the 49ers in scoring at 16.4 points per game, and assists at 4.3 per game. Tyler Lamb, a 6-5 wing, is averaging 15.3 points and 3.6 rebounds per game. In 12 Big West games, Caffey and Lamb have combined to take 297 of the team’s 702 field goal attempts (42.3 percent)

“We’re still expecting the same sort of two-pronged attack of Mike Caffey, who is great in transition, and Tyler Lamb, who can make something out of nothing offensively,” Fisher said.

The 49ers’ top inside player is 6-9 senior Dan Jennings, who is averaging 10.0 points and 8.1 rebounds per game. Also of concern to Hawai’i is A.J. Spencer, a 6-3 guard who scored a career-high 24 points in the win over the Warriors on 8-of-10 shooting. It remains his only 20-point game of this season.

“They’re pretty quick, so you can’t expect to just leave one person out on an island,” Nevels said. “It has to be team defense.”

There were also some aspects of the last game that the Warriors wouldn’t mind duplicating. Namely, they hit a season-high 11 3-pointers in the loss to the 49ers, and they are also the only Big West team to score 80 or more points against Long Beach State this season.

“We’re going to score, we just have to get our defense better,” Nevels said.

Senior forward Christian Standhardinger continues to lead the Warriors in scoring (17.8) and rebounding (8.1), and is followed closely by sophomore forward Isaac Fotu at 15.7 points and 6.4 rebounds per game.

Nevels is averaging 13.9 points per game and leads the team with 55 3-pointers and a .437 percentage from 3-point range. Senior guard Brandon Spearman is averaging 11.3 points and 4.4 rebounds per game, and junior point guard Keith Shamburger is averaging 8.5 points per game and Big West best 5.4 assists per game.

The Warriors also have a four-game road winning streak; the 49ers have won four of their last five home games.

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Standhardinger approaching 1,000

Senior forward Christian Standhardinger is 16 points away from becoming just the 16th player to score 1,000 as a University of Hawai’i player.

He scored 504 points as a junior last season, and has 480 so far this season. Only three previous UH players have reached 1,000 points in just two seasons – Tom Henderson (1,082 points, 1972-74), Reggie Cross (1,013 points, 1987-89) and Anthony Carter (1,070 points, 1996-98).

It is worth noting that junior point guard Keith Shamburger has 1,032 points as a NCAA Division I player, but only 230 of those came as a Hawai’i player. He scored 802 during his freshman and sophomore seasons at San Jose State.

Standhardinger is also on the verge of establishing new UH season records for free throws made and attempted. So far this season, he is 170 for 221 from the line. The single-season record for makes is 184 by Chris Gaines in 1989-90; the record for attempts is 224 by John Penebacker in 1969-70.

Thursday’s Big West games
Hawai’i at Long Beach State
UC Santa Barbara at UC Irvine
Cal Poly at UC Davis
Cal State Northridge at Cal State Fullerton

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