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

Gameday: Big West quarterfinals

By Brian McInnis on March 8, 2018

UC Irvine was considered perhaps the toughest first-round draw possible — for anybody, but particularly Hawaii — in the 2018 Big West tournament. As luck had it, Irvine lost to UC Davis in double-overtime in their regular-season finale, swinging the season title to the Aggies and knocking the Anteaters down to third, and into a quarterfinal matchup with the sixth-place Rainbow Warriors. The Anteaters (16-16) defend at an elite level. Hawaii (17-12) generally defends well, but not nearly as consistently […]

Rare feat

By Brian McInnis on March 7, 2018

Thanks to a little research, what was suspected since Saturday was confirmed: Hawaii did something that is pretty rare. The Rainbow Warriors, in beating and losing to every other team in the same conference season, became the first team in program history to do that (WAC or Big West), as well as the only team in NCAA Division I to go 1-1 against its entire league in 2017-18. (Note that not every conference plays a true double round-robin schedule like […]

Reward discord

By Brian McInnis on March 5, 2018

Most of the Big West Conference postseason awards announced today made sense. In this writer’s opinion, there was one clear exception to that. Big West freshman of the year, Terrell Gomez. Gomez received the award (which would’ve been UH’s second in that category, after Isaac Fotu co-won it in 2012-13) based on voting from the league’s nine head coaches. In my mind — and maybe I’m a little biased, but I don’t think I’m off base here — it clearly should’ve […]

Gameday: at Cal State Fullerton

By Brian McInnis on March 3, 2018

Fifth or sixth. Neither sound terribly appealing, but those are the only possibilities in play when Hawaii takes on Cal State Fullerton in the regular-season finale at Titan Gym today. If UH (16-12, 7-8 Big West) were to spring a mild upset and win, in conjunction with a Long Beach State home loss to UC Riverside (possible, but not terribly likely), the Rainbow Warriors are the 5 seed in next week’s Big West tournament and will appear in the 4-5 […]

Gameday: at UC Davis

By Brian McInnis on March 1, 2018

UC Davis is in contention for a Big West regular-season title for two reasons. The Aggies have been dynamite at home; until recently they had a 19-game winning streak at the Pavilion, one of the longest in the country at the time. And they’ve been effective without their star, the suspended Chima Moneke, who’s expected to miss a seventh straight game tonight because of a team suspension. Per the Sacramento Bee, Chima Moneke will participate in UC Davis’ senior ceremonies […]

Gameday: UC Irvine

By Brian McInnis on February 24, 2018

Hawaii can prove it has well and truly put its recent funk behind it by defeating first-place UC Irvine tonight in front of a “Whiteout” crowd at the Stan Sheriff Center. Fifth-place UH (16-10, 7-6 Big West) has won three straight since dropping five in a row, its worst Big West slide to date, just a couple of weeks ago. UCI (15-15, 10-4) needs a win tonight to keep pace ahead of UC Santa Barbara for the pole position they […]

Gameday: Long Beach State

By Brian McInnis on February 22, 2018

Anything has been in play when Long Beach State and Hawaii have squared off at the Stan Sheriff Center in recent years. UH has won going away. LBSU has dominated. The Bows have won in overtime, and on and on. It’s made for an entertaining and unpredictable series. Great day to play some basketball — Produced by MT (@prodby_MT) February 22, 2018 Unfortunately for UH, it seems forward Mike Thomas will miss his second straight game with his unspecified injury […]

Gameday: at UC Riverside

By Brian McInnis on February 17, 2018

UPDATE: Forward Mike Thomas is out at Riverside today with an unspecified injury he incurred at UC Irvine. Not counting redshirt year of 2016-17, first game he’s missed since the 2014-15 season. How about that game on Thursday? Hawaii’s improbable one-point win at UC Irvine, in which UH sank only three field goals the entire second half, came courtesy of strong defense, rebounding, ball control, and exceptional free-throw shooting. (And some beneficial calls down the stretch.) Now the sixth-place Rainbow […]

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