Hawaii men’s basketball: Final statistics and notes of 2019-20

Now that the 2019-20 season is officially done — not in the fashion anyone envisioned, but still — let’s take a look at some of the final numbers for the 17-13 (8-8 Big West) Rainbow Warriors.

>> First-team All-Big West shooting guard Eddie Stansberry led the Rainbow Warriors with 15.9 points per game, ranking second among Big West players for the full season (Big West Player of the Year Lamine Diane did not qualify for that tally, as he became eligible just before conference play.) Only CSUN’s Terrell Gomez (19.8 ppg) was higher.

Stansberry’s 15.9 is the highest season average by a UH player in seven years, since Christian Standhardinger put up 18.1 in 2013-14. His 90 3-pointers made is third all-time for a UH season, behind only Zane Johnson (98 in 2010-11) and Michael Kuebler (97 in 2003-04). For his career (two years), his 167 3s ranks fourth, behind Jack Purchase (199), Johnson (180) and Predrag Savovic (178).

His season free-throw percentage of .881 (74-for-84) is second all-time, behind Brocke Stepteau’s record .889 set last season. He would be fifth for a career at .827, but a low amount of foul shots as a junior prevented him from having the requisite attempts to qualify.

Stansberry scored 816 points with the ‘Bows.

>> Fourth-year junior point guard Drew Buggs set the UH career assist record immediately following a prolific march of dimes during conference play (he had 12, 11, 10 and nine in a four-game span). He was not able to replicate that same level of productivity down the stretch of the season but still averaged a Big West-leading 5.4 per game in becoming a repeat all-league honorable mention (the 5.4 matched his average from last season).

Heading into his redshirt senior year, he has the opportunity to build on his 437 career assists and put it well out of reach for anyone in the near future. At 798 career points, he can join the UH 1,000-point club even without averaging double-figure scoring as a senior. He would become the 17th and first since Standhardinger (2012-14).

>> Senior forward/center Zigmars Raimo scored 775 points and grabbed 489 rebounds in his four-year UH career, the latter of which is a little outside the career top 10. His 6.8 rebounding average as a senior is the highest for a UH player since Standhardinger’s 8.4 in 2013-14. He led the team in steals with 50, nine short of cracking into the top 10 for a season, and is just outside of the top 10 for a career with 108 swipes (Phil Martin is 10th at 113.) His assists jumped markedly, from 38 as a junior to an even 100 as a senior.

Raimo flirted with a triple-double against Samford, with seven points, eight assists and 11 rebounds.

>> Junior forward Samuta Avea was second in scoring average at 10.8 in starting all 25 games he played. He improved his free-throw percentage from .658 as a sophomore to .833. He nearly doubled his minutes average from 15.8 to 30.2, and more than doubled his scoring, from 4.7 to 10.8.

>> Freshman Justin Webster started nine games. His 8.8 points per game was the most by a UH freshman since Isaac Fleming’s 9.4 in 2014-15.

Stansberry, Buggs and Raimo were the only players to start all 30 games.

Some team stats and notes:

>> Eran Ganot, who took a medical leave of absence in the preseason and returned before Maine on Dec. 29, went 9-8 upon his return. He stands at sixth among UH coaches with 86 wins. Associate head coach Chris Gerlufsen, who coached the first 13 games of the season (all but one game of the nonconference season) went 8-5 as the acting head coach. He goes in as the 22nd head coach in program history and is 18th in wins.

>> UH finished 8-8 in the Big West for the third time in four years. It was the No. 4 seed in the Big West tournament for the second straight year.

>> Because of the coronavirus threat and the cancellation of the Big West tournament, UH did not participate in a conference tournament for the first time since the Rainbow Warriors did not qualify for the WAC tournament in 2009-10.

>> Last season, just over 43 percent of UH’s shot attempts came from beyond the arc, a program record. This year, that dropped to 38 percent. (UH shot a Big West-low 33 percent on 3s this year to 35.4 percent last year, a significant difference.) Its 21.7 3-point jacks per game were still the second-most in the league.

>> Its 42.6 team field-goal percentage was eighth of nine Big West teams. Its opponents’ field-goal percentage was 44.0, which ranked third-best.

>> Scoring was 68.6 points per game, sixth in the Big West and down from 72.3 a year ago. UH allowed 67.2 per game, down from 68.2 a year ago.

>> UH could steal the ball passably (5.5 per game), but was anemic in blocks at 2.1. UH hasn’t had a player average better than a block per game since Stefan Jankovic’s 1.21 in 2015-16.