After a pair of losses, the Hawaii men’s basketball team rebounded with two dominant victories heading into Saturday night’s meeting with UC Irvine. Seeing its record dip to 11-5 after a 77-65 struggle against Cal Poly and a 79-78 heartbreaker
After a pair of losses, the Hawaii men’s basketball team rebounded with two dominant victories heading into Saturday night’s meeting with UC Irvine.
Seeing its record dip to 11-5 after a 77-65 struggle against Cal Poly and a 79-78 heartbreaker against Cal State Northridge, the Warriors bounced back with a 100-69 thrashing of UC Riverside and an impressive 90-73 win at UC Davis. The win at Davis was a big one for UH, which had only won one road game thus far this season against Northern Arizona.
Now at 13-5 overall and 2-2 in the Big West, UH got back its style of play in the past two victories. As noted last week, this team struggles when it gets limited production from point guard Keith Shamburger. He doesn’t need to put up huge numbers, but if he is a threat and shows some efficiency in scoring the ball, the team has a much easier time getting everyone else involved. In the two wins, Shamburger averaged 11 points and 5 assists, shooting 6 for 11 from three-point range. He also had zero turnovers in both contests, a great feat for a point guard in a fast-paced offense.
Forward Christian Standhardinger upped his team-leading scoring average to 18.4 points per game on the season with a pair of exceptional performances. He had 27 points, 11 rebounds and three steals against Riverside and followed it up with 22 points, 10 rebounds, five assists and five steals against Davis. Even a mediocre game against UC Irvine (results unavailable as of press time) should be good enough for Standhardinger to earn Big West Player of the Week honors.
On the women’s side, the Rainbow Wahine have now won three straight games to climb back above .500. After opening Big West play with a 78-74 home loss to Cal Poly, the Wahine have moved to 3-1 in conference play. All three victories have come by double digits as Kamilah Jackson has been a dominant force inside, leading the team in both points and rebounds. Jackson has averaged 15.8 points and 11.3 rebounds a game since the conference schedule got underway, helping UH to a 9-7 overall mark.
Jackson had 20 points and 14 rebounds in a 74-61 win over UC Riverside on Jan. 18, her 10th double-double performance already this season. That also proved to be a big night for fellow forward Shawna-Lei Kuehu, who scored a season-high 22 points and grabbed seven rebounds. Kuehu is averaging 12.3 points and 5.5 rebounds since conference play began, up from 9.4 points and 4 rebounds in non-conference play. Her steady improvement and heavier workload has helped the Wahine add more punch than just Jackson up front.
The Wahine hosted UC Irvine (9-9, 2-2 Big West) at the Stan Sheriff Center on Saturday night, while the Warriors took on the UC Irvine men (13-7, 4-0 Big West) in Irvine, Calif., during the team’s homecoming night. Each is looking to remain hot but faces a good challenge. For the men, Shamburger remains a key to its success, while the women can expect to keep getting big nights from Jackson, though Kuehu’s performance could be the X-factor.
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