Hawaii men’s basketball coach Gib Arnold called last week’s practices the team’s best of the season.
He’s hoping to say that one more time before the Stan Sheriff Center is locked up for the summer.
UH (16-11, 9-6 Big West) plays its final home games of the 2012-13 campaign this week, against UC Santa Barbara (8-18, 4-10) on Thursday and Cal Poly (13-12, 8-6) on Saturday.
One more regular-season road game remains, at Cal State Northridge next week.
The Rainbow Warriors are coming off their most lopsided victory of the season, an 84-50 rout of Northern Arizona in a nonconference BracketBusters game on Saturday. But Arnold gave no quarter to his team Monday in its first practice since.
"I thought it was another really good practice," Arnold said. "I got on them a little bit later, just to keep that intensity up. I thought as practice was winding down a little bit, we took a couple of plays off. I think they fixed it and finished strong."
Finishing strong is indeed paramount as March Madness looms.
A conference regular-season championship is out of reach because of Long Beach State’s 13-2 league record. But the third-place Rainbow Warriors can still finish as high as second place — or as low as seventh — heading into the eight-team Big West tournament that starts March 14 in Anaheim, Calif.
"I think it’s important for us to come out and play hard, try to get two wins and get some momentum going on the road," junior guard Garrett Jefferson said.
The ‘Bows need these games to give themselves the best possible seeding, but they’ll need to win three games in three days regardless of that to win the tournament and receive an automatic NCAA Tournament bid.
"You’re going to have to play 40 minutes of real good basketball every game from here on out," Arnold said. "I thought we played our best continuous game last Saturday. For 40 minutes, the intensity was good on both ends of the floor. And I’d like to see that again Thursday and Saturday."
UH won 78-73 at UCSB on Jan. 26 for the first of three straight road victories. But the Gauchos were missing star big man Alan Williams, who’s since returned from a knee injury.
Cal Poly shot lights out and dealt UH its most lopsided loss of the season, an 88-59 setback on Jan. 24.
One of Monday’s emphases was on going over the top of ball screens, something Arnold feels will be key in UCSB’s pick-and-roll action with Williams.
"We gotta fight over ball screens so they can’t get their offense going," Jefferson said.
Against Northern Arizona, senior center Vander Joaquim posted his 10th double-double of the season, and 30th of his career. His 20 points moved him past Matt Gibson for 10th on the UH career scoring list at 1,138. He needs 92 points to match Julian Sensley at No. 9.
