Rainbow Warriors picked sixth in Big West basketball poll

As luck would have it, the Big West Conference men’s basketball preseason media poll was released on Hawaii’s media day Thursday.

And a sixth-place projection had the Rainbow Warriors in a prickly mood.

"Sixth is not that good, huh?" senior forward Christian Standhardinger asked rhetorically. "Uhh, why? … We just gotta work hard and stuff like that doesn’t really matter."

Standhardinger was UH’s lone representative on the All-BWC preseason team, along with four others who were picked to last year’s postseason first team plus reigning Defensive Player of the Year Will Davis II from UC Irvine.

UH went 17-15 overall and 10-8 (fifth place) in its first Big West season of 2012-13. Going by the poll, media around the league favor a strong crop of leading scorers and other contributors among the league’s top seven teams.

"All those things will be obviously determined on the court," fourth-year UH coach Gib Arnold said.

"We as a team have gotten together and we’ve decided we’re still going to play this season," he quipped. "We’ve decided we’re still going to show up."

UC Irvine, which knocked the ‘Bows out of BWC tournament first round in March, was picked to win the league coming off a 21-win season. The Anteaters received nine of 24 possible first-place votes.

Arnold said he did not dispute that pick, as he respects UCI’s blend of size (three 7-foot-plus bigs) and athleticism. He did expect UH to land closer to the middle of the nine-team pack. Last year’s tournament champion, Pacific, is gone for the West Coast Conference and three-time regular season champ Long Beach State (picked fourth) had heavy roster turnover.

UC Santa Barbara, picked second with six first-place votes, has a BWC Player of the Year contender in 6-7 center Alan Williams. Cal Poly (fourth) is still well-rounded and UC Davis (fifth) has the league’s leading scorer (20.3 ppg) back in guard Corey Hawkins, who dropped 40 at the Stan Sheriff Center last year.

"I believe we’re the best team in the Big West and we’re going to go out and show it," senior captain Brandon Spearman said. "I really don’t want to do a lot of talking because actions speak louder than words. We’re going to let our game speak for us."

"We got bigger and better things to worry about right now," said point guard Keith Shamburger, one of UH’s new players expected to contribute. "That’s the least of our worries. At the end of the season we’ll definitely look back at that and see where we’re at. I know we’ll be way higher than that."