HONOLULU — University of Hawai‘i men’s basketball player Douglas Kurtz will miss the first six regular-season games of the 2009-10 campaign due to conditions imposed by the NCAA to certify him as an amateur, states a press release from the
HONOLULU — University of Hawai‘i men’s basketball player Douglas Kurtz will miss the first six regular-season games of the 2009-10 campaign due to conditions imposed by the NCAA to certify him as an amateur, states a press release from the UH athletic department.
The 7-foot center briefly appeared in three games in a professional league in his native Brazil, prior to arriving in the United States in 2007. Kurtz will be eligible to play for Hawai‘i beginning with a home contest against Lamar on Dec. 6. He did appear briefly in one of UH’s two exhibition games, logging one rebound, one assist and one turnover in four minutes of action, in an 83-69 exhibition win over BYU-Hawai‘i.
“We looked at all different angles as far as an appeal, but ultimately we decided to accept the NCAA ruling,” head coach Bob Nash said. “This way Doug, as well as the team, can move on without enduring the uncertainty of his playing status from game to game.”
Prior to arriving in Hawai‘i, Kurtz played two seasons at Marshalltown Community College in Iowa. He averaged 9.6 ppg and 5.8 rpg as a sophomore for the Tigers and led the conference in both field-goal percentage (.671) and free-throw percentage (.847), while earning all-region honors. This past summer he was a member of the Brazilian national team that participated in the 2009 World University Games in Serbia.
The Rainbow Warriors open the season this Friday versus Southern Utah in the Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic.
