FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM
Haim Shimonovich, Hawaii's 23-year-old center, has worked on improving his strength, and the Warriors hope he becomes a factor on offense.
HE'S a gentle giant, according to his Hawaii basketball teammates. HAIM SHIMONOVICH
Reaching
new heights
The center will be a key
component of UH's offenseBy Cindy Luis
cluis@starbulletin.comAll 82 inches and 265 pounds of him.
Haim Shimonovich often goes unnoticed in the statistics, but try to move the Rainbow junior center around in the key and ...
What: Hawaiian Airlines Tip-Off Tournament UH basketball
Today: Texas A&M-Corpus Christi vs. Cal State Fullerton, 5 p.m. Arkansas-Little Rock vs. Hawaii, 7 p.m.
Sunday: Arkansas-Little Rock vs. Texas A&M-C.C. or CS Fullerton, 5 p.m. Hawaii vs. Texas A&M-C.C. or CS Fullerton,
Where: Stan Sheriff Center (10,225)
TV: UH games only, live, KFVE-TV
Radio: UH games only, live, 1420-AM
Internet: uhathletics.hawaii.edu
Tickets: $7-$16
"He doesn't get pushed around easily," said associate head coach Bob Nash, who at 6-foot-8 sees eye to nose with Shimonovich. "You go out and try to push him around ... he's a big guy."
Nash should know. He worked out with Shimonovich this summer, as did senior forward Paul Jesinskis.
The two players came back after the first summer-school session to specifically work on strength conditioning. Shimonovich, from Israel, and Jesinskis, from South Africa, took yoga classes together, went surfing and played a lot of one-on-one.
"As a player, he's really skilled," said Jesinskis, who underwent surgery for a broken wrist Monday and is out for a least a month. "He has abilities that cannot be coached in terms of finding the open man. Look at his stats. He doesn't get the ball that much, but when he does he does something with it.
"He takes up a lot of space and moves well on defense. He's real formidable and intimidating."
At 23, Shimonovich is also a mature -- but quiet -- team leader. It was an easy transition from his required three years of service in the Israeli army to playing for Hawaii coach Riley Wallace.
"By the time you finish in the army, it gives you a different perspective," Shimonovich said. "I think Coach Wallace would be a good general. He's tough and professional. Our basic training was hard, but then it was easy after that. Our practices here are harder."
As tough as he is on defense (6.6 rebounds per game last season), the Rainbows need Shimonovich to become more of a factor on offense. In Sunday's exhibition loss to EA Sports, he had just three shot attempts in 29 minutes, making two, while adding a team-high five assists.
"I think this year will be different because we don't have the great outside shooters," said Shimonovich, who averaged 7.1 points in starting all 33 games last season. "We'll be trying to get the ball inside more. And, for me, I need to score more.
"That last game, I had some mistakes, didn't help enough on defense. As a team, we've been practicing hard. We have good guys at each position and good experience. If we play together, we should be good."
But better than last year? Hawaii finished with a school-best 27-6 record, losing to Xavier 70-58 in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Ironically, Xavier was one of four schools Shimonovich sent tapes to in hopes of playing college basketball in America. The others were Virginia, Miami (Ohio), and Hawaii.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hawaii's Haim Shimonovich, who celebrated a win over Tulsa on Feb. 21, hopes the Rainbows get their first-ever NCAA Tournament victory this season.
"Hawaii called me back first," Shimonovich said. "My friends who play basketball, most go to East Coast schools. They didn't think of Hawaii as a basketball place. I wanted to go to a nice place and Hawaii is a nice place.
"But it is far away from home and the biggest adjustment is not being able to see my family. When I was younger, I never thought about Hawaii, I didn't know anything about it. We would say, 'Go to Honolulu.' That meant, 'Get lost.' "
But in moving half a world away, Shimonovich has found himself on a team that is predicted to make the NCAA Tournament for a third consecutive year. He's also on track to graduate with a math degree and expects to study for a master's degree in finance either at UH or back in Israel.
But right now, the player they call "Big Daddy" is working on just one move: to get UH beyond the first round of the NCAA Tournament for the first time ever.
"Just to go to the tournament isn't enough," he said. "I think we have a chance to go farther this year."
UH Athletics
