Posted on: Sunday, January 25, 2004
Kuebler in zone of his own
| • | UH alone atop WAC after win over Boise |
| • | Taylor scores 20 to lead Hawai'i women |
By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist
On his way out of the Stan Sheriff Center, Boise State basketball coach Greg Graham made a point of stopping to find Hawai'i's Michael Kuebler in a crowded hallway.
"Great game," Graham said by way of congratulation, slapping Kuebler on the bare shoulder.
Graham, as much as anybody in the crowd of 7,799, had come to appreciate — the hard way, mostly — just what Kuebler meant in the Rainbows Warriors' 64-58 victory last night.
It wasn't just that Kuebler was the game's high scorer with 20 points, but how he did it.
Ten times this season Kuebler, the Western Athletic Conference's leading scorer, has scored 20 or more points for UH. Not by coincidence, the Rainbows have won nine of those games.
But last night might have been the most timely 20 he's dropped all season, especially the 15 that came on 7 of 11 shooting in a points-at-a-premium first half. Without it, the Rainbows wouldn't be sitting all alone in first place today at 14-3 overall and 6-1 in the conference.
In a first half where Boise State led most of the way to a 30-27 halftime advantage, the Rainbows were in danger of falling dangerously far behind. And, they likely would have if not for Kuebler, who scored 15 of their 27 points, keeping them in the game until help arrived later in the form of Haim Shimonovich and then Julian Sensley and Phil Martin who all eventually added double figures.
For on a night when Boise State seemed to have UH figured out defensively, Kuebler was the one hole in the plan. The 2-3 zone defense Graham drew up and the Broncos implemented did pretty much all Boise State could have asked for in holding UH to 32 percent first-half shooting, including just 1 of 9 from 3-point range.
Most telling, in the 2 minutes, 14 seconds UH coach Riley Wallace dared to rest Kuebler in the first half, the Rainbows were scoreless missing all five shots.
It just turned out that the first-half zone Kuebler was in trumped the one Boise State put on the floor. His ability to make off-balance, late-on-the-shot-clock baskets was the one thing Graham's Xs and Os couldn't contain.
"I was really feeling it," Kuebler said. "Once in a while you get like that so whatever you put up, no matter what it looks like, it goes in. That's kinda how it was for me out there."
So much so that with each daring off-balance shot he took, Kuebler found himself sneaking a look back at the UH bench and Wallace to see if he'd get a chewing out.
"He was definitely in a zone out there and it was a good thing, too, because the way they (the Broncos) were playing, they could have gone off and left us," Wallace said.
"He was keeping us in it so I wasn't gonna get on him."
On this night, the zone Kuebler was in beat anything Boise had.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.
