Hawaii Warrior World

Formerly about Rainbow Warriors basketball, but now covering all University of Hawaii sports.

About the blog host

Brian McInnis has covered sports on Oahu full time since 2007, when he joined the Honolulu Star-Bulletin staff as a general reporter. He was the UH basketball beat writer from the 2008-09 season through 2017-18. Follow him on twitter @Brian_McInnis

Latest news

Spearman update

By Brian McInnis on November 3, 2013

Saturday came and went without any clear-cut timetable for a return to action for Hawaii senior guard Brandon Spearman. The tri-captain seems in high spirits considering it was diagnosed as a high ankle sprain during/immediately after the Brigham Young-Hawaii exhibition, when a Seasiders player fell into his legs on the jump ball and he turned his right foot. He tweeted this earlier Saturday. But he’s holding off talking to the media about his injury for now. UH coach Gib Arnold […]

Halloween gameday: UH vs. BYUH

By Brian McInnis on October 31, 2013

Happy Halloween, all. Be safe out there, with kiddies or without, at the UH basketball game vs. BYUH or anywhere else. At last, after a month of preseason practices, the Rainbow Warriors finally get to suit up against someone else for all to see. (At least, all who don’t have other arrangements tonight, and I’m betting that precludes a lot of you.) “I think it will be good for both teams,” UH coach Gib Arnold said. “I think BYU-Hawaii does […]

A Dressler reflection

By Brian McInnis on October 26, 2013

As I reported today, Hawaii freshman center Caleb Dressler will be out for the entire 2013-14 season once he gets back surgery in the coming days. It’s a tough break for Dressler, who waited his turn all of last season as a redshirt. This is a blow to the depth of the UH frontcourt, though not necessarily one the team will feel. It’s hard to know if Dressler would have beat out Stefan Jovanovic as the team’s fourth true big […]

UH hoops picked sixth

By Brian McInnis on October 24, 2013

Well, how about that. The Hawaii men’s basketball team was dealt a measure of disrespect — how I’m sure it will come off to the Rainbow Warriors — from the media Thursday with UH’s projected finish of sixth place in the Big West Conference preseason poll. It’s true that UH has several reasons for optimism this year, but, as the poll showed, so do about six other teams in the nine-team league. Many have their top player back from last season. […]

MASH unit

By Brian McInnis on October 24, 2013

A confluence of circumstances left the Hawaii basketball team more shorthanded than usual on Wednesday. In addition to existing injuries to center Caleb Dressler and point guard Niko Filipovich, UH was without lead guard Keith Shamburger, shooting guard Jack Hackman and wing Negus Webster-Chan. A team manager was also out of commission. Shamburger and Hackman (and the manager) were out with illnesses. Webster-Chan took a shot to the eye earlier this week. Dressler still seems a long ways off from […]

Green & White rewind

By Brian McInnis on October 22, 2013

Hawaii basketball’s Green & White Scrimmage experiment on Saturday wasn’t perfect (it could have used game jerseys that were, you know, green and white), but it was a fair platform to introduce the 2013-14 Rainbow Warriors without any set national date for Midnight Madness events this year. There was more actual basketball action than you could ask for in previous iterations of the Ohana Hoopfest/Twilight Ohana/Midnight Ohana. The crowd of about 1,000 was also respectable, and the team and coaches […]

Arnold returns from Louisville

By Brian McInnis on October 19, 2013

It ended up being just a single full day of visitation, but Gib Arnold returned from Louisville a wiser man on Friday. Okay, so the dividends of his trip may not be immediately identifiable, but the UH coach said he did indeed benefit from his brief stay with Rick Pitino and the staff of the defending national champion Cardinals. It was strange timing, in that Pitino had a press conference Thursday to announce the indefinite suspension of forward Chane Behanan. […]

Surnames for all

By Brian McInnis on October 15, 2013

The Hawaii basketball team has gone without surnames on the back of its jerseys for the first three years under Gib Arnold. Well, that’s changing in Year 4. Arnold confirmed after Monday’s team practice that his players would have that honor above their numbers on their jerseys. “It’s the right time. It’s the right group of guys,” he said. You can take that as a vote of confidence in the character of this group. ————— In Monday’s practice, two of […]

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