Court Sense

Former Hawaii basketball point guard and current Spectrum Sports analyst Johnny White gives his take on the Rainbow Warriors' 2020-21 season-opening win over Hawaii Pacific and offers up some observations on the team's many new players. White speaks about two prominent games of his era (1998-2000), being a point guard for Riley Wallace, and playing for an NBA D-League title in its very early days.

NBC Sports Philadelphia hockey correspondent Taryn Hatcher, a former Hawaii News Now sports reporter, talks life since she made the move from the islands to her backyard market in 2018. Covering the NHL's Flyers is challenging, but nothing compared to when she arrived in Hawaii and had the teleprompter crash while reading Polynesian names on her first high school football weekend. Plus, the UH basketball season finally gets underway -- minus a key player.

Chaminade basketball coach Eric Bovaird isn't at this week's Maui Invitational in North Carolina, and heck, his team is scattered to the wind while the small Division II Catholic school yields to state COVID restrictions. But Bovaird, ever the optimist, sees no reason to pout. His giant-slaying Silverswords will be back someday and, until then, he's got time to re-live his journey from rural Pennsylvania to the shores of Lahaina.

Just in time for the revised start to the 2020-21 college basketball season, ESPN/Big West fun-loving analyst Richie Schueler prospects the shaky ground the sport is on as teams press ahead with competition -- even as many games are postponed and canceled due to COVID. (Hawaii is among the programs still without a posted nonconference schedule.) Schueler gives his outlook of the BWC and what obstacles, chiefly UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara, stand between Hawaii and a title.

Former Hawaii big man and current Rainbow Warriors graduate manager Gibson Johnson provides some updates on the state of the 'Bows a mere two weeks before the newly slated start of the 2020-21 season. Johnson, an All-Big West honorable mention in 2016-17, details why he pursued coaching over playing pro right after college and recalls his reaction to being dubbed "Old Man Swag" by the host for his effective, deceptive, YMCA-esque post game. Plus, the Stan Sheriff Center gets a new name.

Good friend of the host Falaniko Maosi, an avid Twitch streaming enthusiast, explains why and how he got into playing video games for a live online audience and what he's learned about the most successful streamers broadcasting today, including the burgeoning Twitch Hawaii community. The former tuba player for the University of Hawaii analyzes the undeniable correlation between marching in the band and launching a streaming channel.

Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach and three-time NBA champion Phil Handy carves out some quality time on the heels of winning a special title in the Orlando bubble. The former Hawaii basketball forward reveals how his father and Riley Wallace sealed the deal on a skeptical Handy going to UH, how the Rainbow Warriors won the 1994 WAC tournament, and how his self-started player development business blossomed into NBA opportunity. What could be next for him, given his six straight trips to the Finals?

After coming within two games of an NBA championship, Miami Heat player development coach and former Hawaii basketball great A.C. Carter comes on and shares thoughts of his team's memorable sojourn in the Orlando bubble. UH's first conference player of the year relives his incredible journey from hustling on Atlanta hardcourts as a high school dropout, to making it out to the islands, to gritting out an extended career in the Association.

Former Hawaii basketball director of operations Chris McMillian becomes the first member of Gib Arnold's old UH coaching staff to come on the pod and share his perspective of what happened when everything fell apart amid an NCAA investigation back in 2014. McMillian, now a full assistant at Idaho State, gives a candid assessment of what went wrong and what he learned from the experience.

Local hoops legend Shawna-Lei Kuehu, now a coach at Kealakehe High on the Big Island, traces back her path through her transformative college days at Hawaii that included raising her baby daughter while meeting the many demands of a star Division I student-athlete. She says what she can on a tough subject: her ongoing lawsuit against Punahou and a former Buffanblu assistant coach who is accused of sexual assault by multiple ex-players.