Hawaii on a roll despite injuries

Honolulu Advertiser columnist Ferd Lewis has a column today on the recent impressive play by Hawaii -- this despite an assortment of injuries and missing frontcourters. One element Lewis doesn't touch upon is the experience of the Rainbow Warrior starting five -- four seniors, two of them fifth-year types -- make up the quintet coming out to begin games. That's an enormous factor.

UH hoops hitting its stride
Ferd Lewis
Honolulu Advertiser
January 3, 2008

A month ago as this Western Athletic Conference men's basketball season began, any use of University of Hawai'i and "win the conference" in the same sentence by head coach Bob Nash would have prompted laughter, if not outright derision.

It is still a longshot, but when, in response to a question about the Rainbow Warriors' goals, Nash last night linked the two once disparate elements, saying, "Whether we can win the conference, we're going to give it our best effort," there wasn't so much as a snicker in the post-game press conference.

In the wake of a 71-57 thumping of Louisiana Tech last night that left the 'Bows 6-3 in the conference — and in a tie for third place, a game out of first place — UH is sitting pretty.

Pretty amazing, really.

For here is a team that got skunked — 0-3 — in its own Rainbow Classic and then proceeded to lose two of its first three WAC games. Hardly your precursor of success.

But since then, these 'Bows have won five of six games, including three in a row. Remarkable, really, when you consider that three of their biggest players, 6-foot-11 Stephen Verwers, 6-10 Ji Xiang and 6-8 P. J. Owsley were sitting side-by-side on the bench last night in street clothes. Only Owsley, who has a knee injury, might make it back.

"I'm sure they (the other WAC schools) are scratching their heads and trying to figure out how we're getting it done with all these injuries and problems," Nash said. "I'd probably scratch my head, too, about where we are at this point..."

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