ANAHEIM, CALIF. » Any basketball team’s depth is tested and tried during conference tournament week.
For the Rainbow Warriors, depth was already an area of concern.
Of late, a depleted rotation has left Hawaii with six players, sometimes fewer, who can reliably score or make an offensive impact for coach Gib Arnold.
UH left for Los Angeles and its first Big West tournament on Tuesday after one last practice at the UH lower campus. Starting Thursday against fourth-seeded UC Irvine (18-14), No. 5 UH (17-13) will try to win three games in three days at Anaheim’s Honda Center to advance to the program’s first NCAA Tournament since 2002.
The good news: UH is bringing its two biggest question marks, junior guard Brandon Spearman and freshman wing Ozren Pavlovic, on the trip.
The bad: Spearman still isn’t expected to play, despite his best efforts to rehab his sprained ankle for a return this week, and Pavlovic, though back in the fold after missing the team’s last road trip for academic reasons, hasn’t been a regular rotation player since the first half of Big West play.
Since Spearman, the starting shooting guard, went down in an 80-71 loss at Pacific on Feb. 16, UH’s bench has been outscored 63-17 in three Big West games. The team’s most reliable bench scorer, freshman Isaac Fotu, took Spearman’s place in the starting lineup, which has had a trickle-down effect that leaves freshman guard Brandon Jawato as the only reliable shot-maker not in the starting five.
UH enters Anaheim on a two-game slide. Arnold was asked about the team depth issue being exacerbated in a tournament setting this week.
"We’re going to have to alter a few things with that," Arnold conceded. "I felt that Spearman’s absence did hurt us these last couple of games with really good guard-oriented teams. We’re going to have to make sure some of the younger guys are ready to go … starting on Thursday. Get them in early and get them minutes so they can have some confidence down the stretch. I think it’s important … three games, you’re trying to win the game at hand. But I do think it’s necessary our guys are rested going down the final minutes of Thursday’s game."
That could mean opportunities for a few players: backup center Davis Rozitis, who scored six points last game at Cal State Northridge; Pavlovic, who was briefly tried out at point guard earlier this season; and even freshman Manroop Clair, who’s disappeared entirely from the rotation despite starting five games from late December to late January.
UH hasn’t cracked double-figure scoring off its bench since the BracketBuster rout against Northern Arizona on Feb. 23.
