By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

By day this week, University of Hawai'i basketball player Michael Kuebler is showing his visiting father the sights and wonders of his new-found home here.

"Pearl Harbor, snorkeling... all the usual tourist things 'cause it is his first time here," Kuebler says.

By night, Kuebler the guard is showcasing a far more familiar sight: Himself as a game-breaking scorer.

While it is a side of Kuebler that his father, Michael from Salem, Ore., knows well having followed his son's exploits through high school and junior college, it is a still-emerging role at Stan Sheriff Center where UH coach Riley Wallace sometimes has to urge, beseech and, yes, even threaten Kuebler to more fully adopt.

"Sometimes," Kuebler says, "Coach gets in my face about it."

And it is a worthy cause and a point worth making for it is occasions like last night, a 72-55 Western Athletic Conference home-opening victory over Southern Methodist, when Kuebler can stand taller than even his 6-foot, 5-inch height.

It is nights like these, when he has both the outside shots and the itch to take them that this gangly blond can be a potent force and a much-needed difference maker for these Rainbow Warriors.

His 17 points, on 6-of-10 field goal shooting — 3-of-6 from 3-point range — and two free throws added up to a lot more for the 9-2 Rainbows.

Kuebler, picking his spots and popping from the outside, is the compliment the Rainbows must have from the perimeter for Carl English. He is the one most capable of lessening English's considerable burden as the team's scorer and helping open the inside game.

Indeed, it was fully English's show and still anybody's ball game with English getting six of UH's first 10 points and eight of the first 14 until Kuebler began to weigh in.

A jumper here, a long-range Scud there from Kuebler and, suddenly, the Rainbows were rolling and the Mustangs were reeling.

In a 40-point first half, English (15) and Kuebler (13) combined for 28 of them, or three fewer points than the combined Mustang team.

"I think we actually did a fair job on English," SMU coach Mike Dement would say of English's 19 points (1-of-6 from 3-point range). "But that Kuebler, I thought, stepped up and hit some big shots."

"That's what I want from him (Kuebler)," Wallace declared. "Anytime he has an open shot he feels good about, I want him to take it. He's got the same green light as Carl."

Nothing Kuebler's father hadn't seen plenty of before from his son, perhaps, but something Wallace and the Rainbows would like to see much more of from here on out.