The journey was humbling for Larry Lewis Jr.

Hawaii basketball’s latest signee is also thankful for the bumpy road; his present circumstances are all the more striking because of it.

“Man, it really does look like how it does on those postcards,” Lewis recalled of his impressions during a recent visit to the islands. “Beautiful.”

For a two-year period of his Arizona high school career, the 6-foot-2 guard was verbally committed to play for USC. Because of inadequate test scores, that dream was not to be. By the time Lewis righted himself academically as a 20-plus-per-game scorer, the Trojans had moved on.

He wound up at Texas-San Antonio of Conference USA for two years, the first as a redshirt. After he played that second year, sometimes as a point guard and as an occasional starter, Lewis knew he wanted to take a different route: off the ball and off the beaten path.

That trail required some ego-checking. He spent a season at Odessa (Texas) College so he could keep playing competitively rather than sitting for a year as he would have had to had he transferred directly to a Division I school.

Lewis made the most of it. He scored 11.1 points per game on an efficient 49.1 percent shooting, and the sturdily built driver-by-reputation raised his 3-point accuracy to 40.7 percent. Between that and his knack for getting to the rim and drawing contact, Lewis was an all-conference player on a team that went 27-6 and won its regional championship.

“I expanded my game,” he said. “I really worked on my outside game so it’d make it easier for me to drive, because driving’s so natural.”

But it was never easy.

“It was a humbling experience, you know, coming from a D-I to a junior college,” Lewis said. “It’s definitely a big change, not only in the budget but like in living, stuff like that. It was a grind all year. It humbled me a lot. I’m thankful for the experience as well.”

Hawaii was an intriguing option for his last two years of eligibility — Lewis had seen what the Rainbow Warriors did in the 2015-16 season — but during the recruitment process he also became aware of the challenges UH would face with its NCAA sanctions and rebuild of the roster from numerous early departures.

After some deliberation, he chose UH over his other primary suitor, Portland State of the Big Sky Conference.

“It most definitely put things in perspective,” he said. “You know, I thought about that. That was one of my biggest concerns coming here. I had a lot of questions for (the staff) and stuff like that. But at the end of the day … I looked over it, and my decision was UH.”

The well-traveled Lewis — he grew up in Milwaukee before moving to Arizona at 15 — felt a connection with assistant coaches Chris Acker and John Montgomery as they showed him the local ropes during his official visit.

Lewis is the sixth signee for 2016-17, and fourth guard. UH still has two scholarships to assign, with the emphasis likely on big men from here on out.

“Larry brings a great deal of experience to our program,” UH coach Eran Ganot said in a release. “He is a versatile player who loves to compete and lives in the gym and weight room. Larry comes from a very good community college program where he recently was a part of a championship and we also expect him to bring a championship mentality to our program.”

UH adds two walk-ons

Besides Lewis, UH recently added two players out of junior colleges for the 2016-17 season. Brian Garrett of Cañada (Calif.) College and Darryl Matthews of West Los Angeles College will both walk on and have two years of eligibility remaining.

Garrett, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard, scored 14.9 points on 42.5 percent shooting from the field (35.0 percent on 3s, 73.1 percent free throws) in Canada’s recently completed season. Matthews, a 6-foot-5 forward, scored 9.9 per game on 46.9 percent shooting from the floor (33.3 percent 3s, 76.9 percent free throws) while snagging 4.6 rebounds per game.

Camps coming

UH basketball’s Rainbow Warrior Basketball Camps for kids (boys and girls ages 6-17) begin next month. There are three sessions this summer: June 6-9, June 21-24 and Aug. 1-4. Each of the three is $250, but there are discounts for signing up for multiple — all three runs $600.

There’s also a single-day shooting clinic on June 10 for $75.

The camps feature instruction from the UH coaching staff and some current and former players. Separate levels of instruction are offered for beginners, intermediate-stage and advanced players.

The sign-up form is available at hawaiiathletics.com.