Excellent feature on Hawaii's Kareem Nitoto

Here's an in-depth feature on one of Hawaii's unsung players:

'Bows' Nitoto a work in progress
Dayton Morinaga
Honolulu Advertiser

In defense of Kareem Nitoto, statistics don't always tell the whole story of a basketball player.

Defensive discipline is hard to measure in numbers.

So is personal discipline.

Nitoto has excelled at both this season with the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team.

"I don't really look at the numbers," said Nitoto, a sophomore point guard. "If you play basketball, you know you're going to have rough times. Nobody comes out and has a great game every night, except maybe Kobe (Bryant), and I'm not Kobe. Every game is a chance to start fresh. That's how I look at it."

That outlook has worked wonders in recent weeks...

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Yet more on Hawaii point Kareem Nitoto

Note to Kareem's father: please keep those checks coming my way, do increase the amounts a little higher if possible.

Just joshing of course but here's yet another newspaper post about Kareem Nitoto by the Hawaii newspapers. But it's true that Nitoto is going to have a major responsibility this season in how the Hawaii basketball season turns out.

Nitoto gets the point: Let everyone else score
Dave Reardon
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
November 2, 2008

In gyms all over the country, 5s are becoming 4s, 4s converting to 3s, 3s to 2s -- and perhaps most prevalent and key to their teams' success or failure -- 2s learning to be 1s.

There's a simple reason for all this number shrinkage in college basketball: height.

Big men in high school are often tweeners at the next level. Shooting guards and wing players aren't tall enough for the same roles beyond the prep ranks.

At 6-feet-2, Kareem Nitoto was always projected as a college point guard, but his scoring skills made him a shoot-first guy in high school at McClymonds and San Leandro in the Bay Area...

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Kareem Nitoto is more than ready for the decathlon

Kareem Nitoto could probably become an Olympian If he ever decides to give the decathlon a shot. The second-year guard from the Bay Area just made mincemeat out of some existing Hawaii track and field/basketball records because he defines the phrase being in shape.

UH guard soars to record heights
Dayton Morinaga
Honolulu Advertiser
October 21, 2008

Think of all the above-the-rim players to come through the University of Hawai'i men's basketball program.

Anthony Carter, Erin Galloway, Jason Carter and Geremy Robinson are some that come to mind.

Now put Kareem Nitoto above them all.

Nitoto, a 6-foot-3 sophomore point guard, recently set a UH basketball record with a vertical jump of 45 inches. Galloway set the previous mark of 44 inches in 1998.

"It's definitely something I take pride in," Nitoto said. "I saw that (record) number and thought I could get it last year. This year, I worked hard for it and I knew I had it."

Nitoto's record leap was the highlight of the strength and conditioning tests that the Rainbow Warriors had to complete before the start of practices last Friday...

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