Awards abound
As a continued prelude to what could be quite the bountiful haul of postseason awards, Hawaii received a couple of weekly honors on Monday.
They both went to forward Stefan Jankovic.
UH now has more conference weekly awards in a season (five) than any other year in program history. Jankovic didn’t seem particularly impressed (again) with his second such honor this season. (You can see what he had to say about it in Tuesday’s print edition. It’s pretty funny.)
There’s been a lot of talk of late about what conference end-of-season awards UH might get. Roderick Bobbitt has been increasingly mentioned as a strong candidate for Big West Player of the Year, and Jankovic’s huge week on the road raised his profile for that as well.
The only conference player of the year award in UH history went to Anthony Carter for the 1996-97 season. He was the WAC Pacific Division winner.
Aaron Valdes has also been mentioned as a BWC first-team candidate. Can UH place three guys on the first team? It’ll be interesting to see, if they continue to dominate the regular season.
Here was the latest Valdes cram that made the SportsCenter Top 10, with a little assist to Hawaii News Now’s Ian Scheuring. Oh, and to Bobbitt, for tossing that thing perfectly from out of bounds.
Yup… That was #SCTop10 for Aaron Valdes and @HawaiiMBB. Shoutout to @IanScheuring! #GoBows #BWCMBB pic.twitter.com/53P0Y4VuR2
— Big West MBB (@BigWestMBB) February 21, 2016
Then there’s the Big West Coach of the Year race. UH’s Eran Ganot would certainly seem to be a strong candidate; other coaches around the league have spoken highly of the job he’s done this season.
The only UH coach to receive a CoY was Riley Wallace, three times in the WAC: 1988-89, 1996-97, and 2001-02.
The BWC’s nine head coaches vote for the postseason awards prior to the conference tournament.
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Voting for UH in the national polls was still relatively tepid Monday, even after the big win at Irvine. UH picked up some points in the AP poll from the only three voters who seem to have noticed the Rainbows — Zac Boyer (21st), Fletcher Mackel (22nd), and John Feinstein (23rd). UH’s voting points went from five to 12, the 35th-most this week.
Bafflingly, the voting points shrunk from seven to three in the USA Today Coaches Poll, the 37th-most this week.
In CollegeInsider.com’s Mid-Major Top 25 poll, UH went up two spots to No. 6, behind only Valparaiso, Saint Mary’s, Arkansas-Little Rock, Wichita State and (gasp!) Monmouth.
ESPN’s Myron Medcalf showed the ‘Bows a little love Monday. (Scroll down.)
UH is up to No. 73 in NCAA RPI, two ahead of UC Irvine. The Rainbows are 51st in KenPom.
Let’s Go Bows! Let’s Go Bows! Let’s Go Bows!
Rain! —> Bows! Rain! —> Bows! Rain! —> Bows!
Wonder if there’s any interest in Hawaii/BB-highschoolers?
Warriors also got a little love in Lunardi’s Bracketology. He’s moved them up to a 13 seed in the West. Keep on chugging Warriors!!!
win da big west regular season and tournament then they cant leave UH out of ncaa tournament.
K
Myron Medcalf, I think, is the guy who wrote about Trevor Ruffin after Hawaii’s first round loss to Syracuse in the NCAAs.
I’m most excited that Eamonn Brennan finally made mention of Hawaii in his Bubble Watch.
The Ratings Percentage Index on the NCAA site must acknowledge road victories more than the ESPN model. That would account for the eight spot discrepancy.
ESPN ranks Hawaii at #81.
Road victories are factored into the BPI, where Hawaii is in better company.
The only Hawaii opponent that played yesterday was Texas Tech.
So what effect does a home win over Texas Christian have on Hawaii’s RPI?
ESPN: #81 to #78
NCAA: #73 to #74
Hawaii’s non-conference opponents playing today: Indiana State at Northern Iowa; Utah State at Nevada; Georgia at Auburn.
These three games are the ones to watch because NI, Nevada, and Auburn have RPIs in the #101-#150 range.
UC-Santa Barbara and UC-Irvine are Hawaii’s QUALITY wins. They have RPIs of #96 and #72, respectively.
So you would want, in particular, Nevada and Northern Iowa to win, because they’re in striking distance of breaking into the next tier. Nevada(#114), Northern Iowa(#108).
On March 1, Auburn #145 needs to win at #22 Texas A & M, a tall order since the Tigers have been in a death spiral(losing seven of their last eight games) after dismissing their leading scorer.
what’s the actual definition of a quality win? i always thought it was wins over RPI top 25 teams.
The Home Team just needs to keep on winning Baby! ONe accomplishment at a time. 1st the Conference title which should clinch an NIT birth, 2ndly win the Conference tourney to get into the The Dance.
Let’s Go Bows! Let’s Go Bows! Let’s Go Bows!
Rain —> Bows! Rain —> Bows! Rain —> Bows!
Beating a team with an RPI under 25 is ideal, but the metric used to denote a quality win is 1-50.
The only Hawaii opponent that has a shot of landing there is Auburn, should they win out.
Hawaii’s RPI moved in the right direction because: Nevada beat Utah State 73-68, Northern Iowa beat Indiana State 66-44, Auburn beat Georgia 84-81, and UC-Irvine beat Long Beach State 90-67.