Warrior Insider

The University of Hawai’i basketball team has a strategy for its current road trip: win and get outta town.

The Warriors will play at second-place UC Santa Barbara on Thursday, and in a scheduling quirk, will have to return home for the regular-season finale against Cal State Fullerton on Saturday.

The game is scheduled to start at 4 p.m. (Hawai’i time) at The Thunderdome in Santa Barbara, Calif. It will be televised nationally on ESPNU (Oceanic channel 219).

“We haven’t really talked about the travel situation,” UH assistant coach Scott Fisher said. “We’re going to go in there, we’re going to play Santa Barbara, hopefully come out with a win, get straight on the bus, go to the airport in L.A., sleep there overnight, wake up in the morning, get our flight and get out.”

Since scoring an upset win at first-place UC Irvine on January 25, the Warriors have gone 0-4 against the top three teams in the Big West, including a 75-64 home loss to UC Santa Barbara on Feb. 6. All of that could be forgotten if the Warriors are able to pull off an upset of the Gauchos and gain some much needed momentum heading into next week’s Big West Conference Tournament.

Hawai’i is 19-9 overall and in fourth place in the conference at 8-6; UCSB is 19-8 and 10-4. A victory by the Warriors would keep them in contention for the No. 3 seed for the tournament – and eliminate the Gauchos from having any shot at the No. 1 seed.

“They got us here in a pretty tight contest most of the game,” UH assistant coach Scott Fisher said. “This one’s personal. We gotta get this one.”

To do so, the Warriors will have to contain the Big West’s top player in UCSB junior Alan Williams. The 6-foot-8, 280-pound center is averaging league-bests of 21.6 points and 11.6 rebounds per game. He had 20 points and 17 rebounds in the win at Hawai’i in January.

“He’s a fantastic player, one of the best centers in the West Coast, so we need to limit his touches, we have to make it difficult for him to get close to the paint,” Fisher said. “The closer he is to the paint, obviously the more deadly he is, so we need to keep him out of his comfort zone and really make him work.”

While Williams deservedly gets most of the attention, the Gauchos also have formidable backcourt players in Michael Bryson (11.1 points per game, 45 3-pointers), Kyle Boswell (10.3 points per game, 67 3-pointers), and Zalmico Harmon (8.0 points, 5.1 assists per game).

The Warriors shot just 36.8 percent from the field in the loss to the Gauchos, including 15.8 percent (3 for 19) from 3-point range.

“I thought we took some bad shots early in the possessions last time we played them,” Fisher said. “They’re going to be sitting back in a zone, we have to do a better job of stretching that zone out from one side of the court to the other side of the court.”

The Warriors’ inside duo of Christian Standhardinger (15 points, nine rebounds) and Isaac Fotu (17 points, eight rebounds) held their own in the last meeting with the Gauchos, but the backcourt trio of Keith Shamburger, Garrett Nevels and Brandon Spearman combined for 20 points on 8-of-31 shooting.

While the Warriors will have to make the quick trip home to play their “Senior Night” game on Saturday, the Gauchos will honor their seniors on Thursday.

“It’s a nice arena, the last game of the season, so they’re likely to have 4,000 or 5,000 people there, so it should be good,” Fisher said.

Fisher, who played at UCSB from 1982-86, ranks among the Gauchos’ all-time top 10 for both scoring and rebounding. The Thunderdome was known as the Event Center when he was in college.

“I can’t tell you of any dead spots or anything on that floor,” he said. “I do know that I lost more games there than I won, but as a coach, I’ve been doing pretty good there, so hopefully we can get back in there and get another win.”

Thursday’s schedule
Hawai’i at UC Santa Barbara
UC Irvine at Cal State Fullerton
UC Davis at UC Riverside
Long Beach State at Cal State Northridge

Saturday’s schedule
Cal State Fullerton at Hawai’i
UC Riverside at Long Beach State
UC Davis at UC Irvine
UC Santa Barbara at Cal Poly

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Game 29 Tipoff Notes
Who: Hawai’i at UC Santa Barbara
When: Thursday, March 6, 4:00 p.m. Hawai’i time
Where: The Thunderdome (6,000) – Santa Barbara, Calif.
Television: ESPNU (Oceanic channel 219 or HD 1219)
Streaming Video: WatchESPN.com
Radio: 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 UCSBGauchos.com