Even with the fall semester just about to start at the University of Hawaii, the worldwide party continues to grow for the Rainbow Warrior basketball team.

On Friday night, UH coach Gib Arnold said Ozren Pavlovic of Croatia was cleared by the NCAA for the upcoming 2012-13 season and has joined the team.

The left-handed Pavlovic is a 6-foot-8, 205-pound forward with the shooting range of a prototypical European big man. He required and was granted a student visa, one of several obstacles UH was waiting on.

Arnold just beat the buzzer on this one: The 18-year-old arrives on Monday — just as school starts at Manoa — with four seasons of eligibility.

"His size, and his skill-set for a kid that young and that tall, is great," Arnold said. "He’s a deep shooter, has great 3-point range. He’s a lefty. He can guard a power forward, a small forward, but offensively shoots it like a 2-guard with the size of a forward. That’s what really drew me to him. Loved his skill-set. Loved his range at that size."

Vander Joaquim (Angola), Davis Rozitis (Latvia), Christian Standhardinger (Germany), Isaac Fotu (New Zealand), Michael Harper (Australia) and Manroop Clair (Canada) are the team’s other international players.

"Ozi" Pavlovic does not have any Croatian junior national team experience. He played on some lesser-known club teams as an amateur (his statistics were not immediately available). Arnold said no other Division I schools were after him; the coach spotted him months ago while scouting other players in the Croatian capital of Zagreb.

"We were the first ones in," Arnold said. "The only people we were going against were the pros. He had professional offers that a lot of the better players there have at that age.

"He was a little bit of an unknown, quite honestly, except for in his area. … I think he has some skills that are just going to blossom as he gets older and stronger, and be a pretty good player for us in time."