Hawaii men’s basketball: Young guns pressed into service

Kameron Ng saw an opening. He sprinted upcourt, the ball at his fingertips. The defense was far from set. An opening presented itself on the left side of the lane. The guard pressed his advantage and, once the defense collapsed, he noticed the weak-side defender covered down, toward the basket.

Ng rifled it across the lane to the right corner, where an open Justin Webster caught it and put it up and in for three points without hesitation.

“I just hit him, because, shoot, the rotation was all out of whack,” Ng explained afterward.

That was one of the offensive highlights — and defensive lapses — of a strikingly new-look Rainbow Warriors squad that, by necessity, turned to some of its youngest players to lead the show at Thursday evening’s practice.

Guard Ahmed Ali was already gone back home to Canada (and dropped from the official roster) because of his health condition that will keep him off a basketball court all year, perhaps longer. Big man Owen Hulland wheeled around on a scooter, one foot bandaged, as he will miss an indefinite amount of time. And the surprise was junior point guard Drew Buggs was not present (and is expected to miss a few days) because of an urgent family issue back in California.

Ali had been a spectator for the last couple weeks since his health issue arose, but was at the least a positive presence on the sidelines. And the co-captain Buggs had taken his on-court leadership up a few decibels with veterans like Jack Purchase and Brocke Stepteau gone from last year.

“It’s always tough seeing your brothers leave, man,” said the 6-foot-3 Webster, a Dallas native who came to UH from of the Hargrave Military Academy in Virginia. “You know, Ahmed was a brother even though he was here for a short time. We all loved him. Buggs is another brother. He’s family. Him being gone takes the leadership part out of us, takes the whole talk and whole energy out away from us. For us it’s being able to find somebody else to bring that energy. It’s always tough but you can never let those things affect you. You gotta keep on building.”

Freshman guard Justin Webster spoke after Thursday’s practice on #HawaiiMBB continuing to build with Ahmed Ali gone from the team because of a health issue and starting point guard Drew Buggs temporarily away due to a family emergency. pic.twitter.com/2VqsQsJzLS

— Hawaii Warrior World (@hawaiiwworld) October 19, 2019

Said Ng, “It was definitely up to us to set the tone. But Buggs is a great leader, a great person. He’s always telling me how I can be better. Even Ahmed too, he was here for a short time but just him playing at the high Division I level, the Pac-12, he was teaching me stuff before he left. I’m just taking stuff from them and adding it to my game, trying to help the team out.”

Coach Eran Ganot expressed sympathies for Ali’s situation as well as that of Buggs, who’s been his starter at the point since 2017-18.

During practice, though, Ganot had to stop things several times to communicate with his team, often in a pointed manner. That’s been nothing new this preseason, including at the Green & White scrimmage, though he commended the group afterward Thursday for giving “great effort.”

“It’s been one thing after another, a little bit, with our group,” the fifth-year coach said. “We wish the best for Drew, obviously. It’s one of those things in the moment, initially, it takes it back a notch, a little bit. But you quickly shift into, like me personally, my job is to lead. We do have to keep moving forward. There’s opportunities and guys have been thrown into some uncomfortable spots the last couple of weeks, and today even more so. But there are opportunities for guys to get more reps, other guys to get a little more experience. So maybe in the short term it looks a little ugly at times, a little helter-skelter, but in the long term that experience could be something that will help them down the road.”

The 5-foot-11 Ng, the reigning Star-Advertiser state player of the year and walk-on out of Saint Francis School (correction: fixed from Saint Louis), was going live, up and down a court with contact, for the first time since he had an offseason foot procedure. Over the last several weeks, he tried to absorb as much knowledge as he could from the sidelines and during non-contact drills.

“For me, it was a good opportunity to get back on the court and run a squad, run the White Squad today,” Ng said. “I just wanted to show the coaches that I can be a leader. Point guards gotta lead their team, and I felt like I did that today during practice. And I felt like the guys on my team, they helped me, they pushed me to be better. It was a good practice for the White Squad.”

His squad teammate, Samuta Avea, was particularly vocal in supporting him, offering up some chest bumps after big plays.

There were lowlights, as well. A few plays after the aforementioned dime to Webster, Ng tried to no-look fling it into the paint, only to hit teammate Bernardo da Silva in the face — hard.

But the long, bouncy da Silva had his moments (going up high to flush a couple of dunks) and true freshman point guard Jessiya Villa, who was running the Green squad, got his share of opportunities and tough love as well.

“We messed up a lot as young guys, because you know, this is our first stunt at this college thing,” Webster said. “Anything good coming from the coaches is a good lead on building for next practice. You take those encouragements and then you keep on building, keep on building, and then before you know it those encouragements turn into something normal.”

The hard reality is this: Someone totally new to the Division I game will have to spell Buggs for minutes at a time once the season gets going Nov. 8.

“I think you could see the flashes. They had a competitive spirit to them,” Ganot said of da Silva, Ng, and Webster, the latter two of whom got up extra shots in Gym II after practice. “And they’re still in the gym, which is a great sign. They compete. They got a lot to learn, and they’re making some freshman mistakes. But their future is bright because of the way they handle those mistakes. They keep coming to work. They’re going through the same progression that guys before them went through. But I thought they brought great energy today, which is something 100% they have control over. And I thought they’re going to keep getting better because of the way they approach things.”