GAME NOTES: The 40th annual Big West Conference Tournament kicks off on Thursday at the Honda Center, with one of the featured games pitting the fifth-seeded Hawaii Rainbow Warriors against the fourth-seeded Long Beach State 49ers.

Hawaii, which had to deal with a coaching change just before the start of the 2014-15 campaign, showed great resolve as it produced a 12-4 non-conference mark before splitting 16 league bouts. The team was able to close the regular season with two wins in the final three outings, one of those being a 78-59 romp over Long Beach State.

As for the 49ers, who defeated Hawaii in the first meeting of the campaign at the end of January (65-50), they finished the season in fourth place with a 10-6 record, but they were only 16-16 overall due to having a tougher non- conference schedule versus the likes of BYU, UCLA, San Diego State, Syracuse and Louisville, all of those taking place on the road.

Long Beach State has won this event a total of five times, the most of any current league member, with the most recent championship stemming from a 77-64 romp over UC Santa Barbara in 2012. Hawaii, which has come over from the Western Athletic Conference, is appearing in the tourney for the third time and is still waiting to score a victory.

The winner of this meeting will be back in action on Friday against an opponent to be determined based on the seeds remaining.

Over the final four games of the regular season the Rainbow Warriors had a different leading scorer each time out, which either shows a very balanced scoring attack or a unit that is wildly inconsistent. On paper it appears to be the former as there are a total of seven players averaging 7.5 ppg or better on a squad that is generating 73.4 ppg. Leading the way is Aaron Valdes with his 13.6 ppg, accounting for a team-best 5.3 rpg, while Stefan Jankovic pitches in with 11.2 ppg and another 5.1 rpg.

Garrett Nevels is responsible for 10.7 ppg and Roderick Bobbitt another 8.9 ppg, the latter not only pacing the program with 172 assists against 89 turnovers, but also recording a fantastic 95 steals, giving him an average of close to three thefts per game, which explains why he was named an all- conference performer.

As the only player on the 49ers to have started every game this season, it only makes sense that Mike Caffey leads the program in scoring with 15.9 ppg as he averages almost 33 minutes per outing. A decent 3-pointer shooter at 35.1 percent, Caffey is also responsible for 3.9 rpg and 3.7 apg, not to mention pacing the program with 60 steals. David Samuels, who has converted 50.2 percent of his field goal tries, checks in with another 10.5 ppg and is first on the squad with both 7.3 rpg and 23 blocked shots, although the latter category is not a strength of Long Beach State.

The Warriors may have picked up some easy wins early on in the campaign, but there's no reason to believe the squad can't translate that success to the mainland for at least a game or two at this stage of the season.