Throughout the 2016-17 season he sat on the bench in street clothes. He was at once a reminder of the good old days and a harbinger of a potentially bright future for the University of Hawaii basketball team.

With the Green and White scrimmage coming up Sunday, that future is fast approaching for fifth-year senior Mike Thomas.

And you don’t even have to be a UH fan to hope his patience and loyalty is rewarded with a monster season. You just have to be a human being.

The last time we saw Thomas play in a game was March 20, 2016. He led the Rainbow Warriors in both points (19) and rebounds (11) in 33 minutes of turnover-less basketball.

He was outstanding, in a game on the national stage.

But the Rainbows lost that NCAA Tournament second-round game 73-60 to Maryland.

And then they went their separate ways.

Most of the core of that team were juniors, but juniors who had little hope of repeating that March Madness appearance.

Looming NCAA sanctions included a postseason ban for the next season — sanctions that were eventually overturned, but way too late, long after the Rainbows were deconstructed and reconstruction had begun.

One stayed, though: Thomas.

After that excellent game against the Terps, the 6-foot-7, 215-pound forward could’ve found a nice landing spot somewhere and possibly played in the postseason again.

But he chose to stay at UH. And a wrist injury forced him to sit out last season, anyway.

Now, Thomas is 100 percent healthy and as hungry as you might expect.

“It was tough, it helped out a little bit, too, to understand the cerebral part of the game,” said Thomas, before practice at steamy Klum Gym on Thursday. “It gave me time to reflect, and time to get better as a teammate, a player, a captain.”

Thomas has continually improved from the time he was a freshman in 2013, despite the chaos of playing under three different coaches with three very different personalities and systems — not to mention the specter of the NCAA investigation that began during his sophomore year and didn’t end until a few days before last spring’s Big West tournament.

“I don’t think you can have a better representative of your program than Mike Thomas,” said the third, and current, coach, Eran Ganot. “Like I’ve always said, he’s a proven, and a guarantee to improve.”

With the wrist completely healed by February, Thomas worked on his perimeter shot. Ganot says he’s become a legitimate outside scoring threat.

And that makes him dangerous from everywhere.

“He’s in the best shape of his life,” Ganot said. “Now he’s making that transition where you’re going from a role player, blender type, to a guy who you can put the ball in his hands. And his versatility helps. His ability to attack off the bounce, his ability to score on the block, his improved shooting ability. I think you can make the argument he’s the best defender at his position in the conference.”

But that position could change from game to game, from situation to situation.

“I don’t like making it about myself, but I think I’m more versatile now,” Thomas said. “Able to defend better. More athletic. If we want to go big, I can play the 3. If we go small, I can play the 5 and get up and down the court.”

He figures to see a lot of time at the wing, since the ’Bows are particularly deep in the frontcourt.

Hawaii has 10 returnees from last year’s 14-16 (8-8 Big West) team. But one of them is not Noah Allen, the graduate transfer from UCLA who emerged to lead UH with 15.7 points per game last season and is now playing in Spain.

Thomas might not score quite as much as Allen did, but it’s likely he will rebound more. And while Allen had to grow into a leadership role, that certainly won’t be the case with Thomas.

And sometimes that’s as simple — or as difficult — as sticking around when almost everybody else leaves.

“Right after the tournament, that was the time to think about (leaving),” Thomas said. “But I just sat down and saw things unfold and I thought about how I’d gotten better with these coaches. You can’t trade that. I go somewhere else, I’d have to build my identity there.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529- 4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.