Revenge of the blog

Malware? Hah! You can’t keep Court Sense down with malware, anonymous internet fiends.

In any case, we’re back up and running. Apologies to anyone who tried to visit and got a strange message warning you about malware on the site over the last week or so. It appears to have been resolved.

Since the last posting, the Hawaii men’s basketball team was dealt a dose of road heartbreak. Close losses at UC Irvine (68-64) and two-time defending champion Long Beach State (76-72) knocked the Rainbow Warriors out of first place and into a three-way tie for fourth.

Yup, you read that right. LBSU (4-1) leads the way now, followed by Cal State Fullerton and Pacific at 3-1, then UH, UC Irvine and Cal Poly at 3-2.

It appears, at this point, any one of these teams can take the Big West title, though The Beach remains the prohibitive favorite once it figures out its new parts it worked in over the holiday break.

UH can vault itself back at or near the top with a very possible 2-0 week coming up at home vs. Pacific and UC Davis. If not, well, it’s going to be a tall task with the next four on the road in the heart of the league schedule.

The Rainbow Warriors have to be happy about Brandon Jawato’s emergence as a clutch shot-maker. He’s made a ridiculous 19 of 30 3-pointers (63 percent) in BWC play, and he nearly bailed his teammates out with the win at LBSU, tying the game up with a 3 on two occasions in the final minutes.

Senior Hauns Brereton also showed some life against LBSU, scoring eight points on 4-for-7 shooting. He really needed an outing like that.

But the UH frontcourt couldn’t carry the load this time. Vander Joaquim was held to 13 (bringing him within nine of 1,000 career points). Christian Standhardinger had three turnovers and had his quietest (and least played) game of the season, with season lows of 12 minutes and six points. And Isaac Fotu had six points and six boards, not enough to pick up the slack.

Look for that trio to come out strong against Pacific on Thursday.

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The UH women’s hoops team, meanwhile, was in action today at home against The Beach.

Freshman Destiny King, a Long Beach native who knows many of the 49ers players, downplayed the personal significance of the game.

Her older brother, Keala, plays for the 49ers men’s hoops team, however. She had a few interesting things to say regarding that.

“Blood’s thicker than water, so I always have to go for my brother,” Destiny said. “I do give the (UH) boys luck, but my brother’s coming back from not playing last year (as a transfer). I just hope he does well.”

Keala King had a relatively quiet game against Uh on Saturday, with three points, three assists and three turnovers.

“We keep in touch every single day,” Destiny said. “Just hearing from his perspective about college and stuff like that, learning that I need to be in the gym every single day. He’s giving me advice on what I need to do to better my game and myself with the coach and my teammates.

(Sitting out) humbled him as well, not playing. But he was really hungry to play after not playing preseason. Him getting a chance to play shows that he’s worked very hard.”