Still getting a few votes
So much for the notion that two road wins would boost Hawaii basketball’s standing in national poll voting.
After beating UC Riverside and Cal State Fullerton on the mainland last week, UH (15-2, 4-0 Big West) actually received fewer votes in today’s Associated Press and USA Today Coaches Top 25 polls.
UH dropped from four points to three in the AP Poll and from one point to none in the Coaches. Apparently the road W’s weren’t emphatic enough to impress — although if voters were aware the team’s top scorer was out, maybe that would’ve changed a few minds. Hard to say. Until a team truly comes in off the fringe of national awareness, many voters aren’t likely to put in the time to scrutinize its daily subplots.
You can view both polls here. Oklahoma, one of two teams to beat UH this year, has ascended to unanimous No. 1 in the AP poll.
Isaac Fleming was UH’s nominee for Big West Player of the Week today. Should know pretty soon if he won it. UC Irvine’s Mamadou Ndiaye also has a case for the 4-0 Anteaters.
UPDATE: Fleming won the BW Player of the Week award. It was his first career weekly honor. He is the second UH player to receive one this season; Roderick Bobbitt has won it twice.
UH hosts UC Davis (6-10, 1-2) Saturday in the Rainbows’ only game of the week.
polls are fun , and continuing to win will take care of that as the season goes on. i was hoping for a mid-week game thursday and go after work. amazing how quick us and irvine are 2 games ahead of the rest of the pack, including long beach and santa barbara.
AP voters are hesitant to jump on the Hawaii bandwagon because they perceive UC-Irvine as being the Big West’s best team. It also doesn’t help that Northern Iowa is 2-4 in the Missouri Valley. They play Wichita State today. This is big for Hawaii’s RPI.
The AP voters probably did Hawaii a favor. By being under the radar, a team like UC-Davis won’t be quite as jacked up come Saturday night to bring “us” down.
Hawaii couldn’t be facing a better team at home. Very beatable. Playing only one game, Hawaii can sit back and enjoy watching the competition beat up on each other during the week.
Aaron Valdez, playing on Saturday or not, will tell me a lot about his future plans. I have nothing against him. I understand that if he wants to transfer, he wants to be as healthy as possible.
If our core returnees transfer, I hope it’s to a high major, and those potential teams will be teams I will root for.
It would be hard to take if they transferred to a Seattle U. or Delaware State.
Gib Arnold: the man could recruit.
Even his bust, Manroop Clair, is having himself a nice season in Washington state. He is over 40% from three-point range.
And what is going on? A major rock figure is going to die every Monday from now on.
Congrats Isaac Flemming. Big improvement over last year. Keep up the good work. Let’s make sure Aaron Valdes is 100% before bring him back. Need him down the stretch; last 4 conference games and the conference tournament. No need to rush him back. Go ‘Bows.
I guess the young r gonna get more olying time. That’s not a bad thing they need playing experience.
Yeah, maybe should have been expected as UHbb didn’t look it’s best the past 2 road games. Road wins were Great but UHbb looked vulnerable to lesser teams on the Road.
I thought Negus Webster-Chan left because of academics.
Why wouldn’t he simply transfer to another Division I program, or play right away at the Division II or the NAIA level?
But no, he turned pro, not by default; he really believes that playing for the Halifax Hurricanes is his best option to realize those professional basketball dreams.
According to Webster-Chan, he left Hawaii because the small forward wanted to play his natural position: shooting guard.
His current Halifax stats: 1.4 ppg. in 11 games.
My god. These student-athletes get some awful advice.
If Webster-Chan remained with Hawaii, maybe Coach Ganot could have redshirted Sherrif Drammeh, who looks as if he could have used a year to get up to speed. At some point, I’m sure Webster-Chan would have gotten some minutes at shooting guard.
Maybe the subtraction of Issac Fotu and Webster-Chan improved team chemistry, which has led to this un-Hawaii-like start of 15-2(in reality, the computers acknowledge them as 13-2), but what if they bought into Ganot’s Gaels 2.0 system?
The imagination runs wild.
I’m thinking, with the roster that Gib Arnold intended, this team could have been loaded; a Sweet Sixteen possibility.
As is, I still believe this team can go where no men’s basketball team has gone before.
They need to keep winning.
They need somebody from the mainland media to fight for us, the little guys.
C’mon, Dick Vitale. I still remember you lauding the front court tandem of Anthony Carter and Alika Smith in an ESPN segment.
Hawaii at UC-Irvine
Destiny King was assessed a technical foul in the first quarter.
I think the officials, if they’re familiar with her, finally got tired of all her eye-rolling and gesticulations.
She reminds me of Petras Balocka.