Sports Watch

By Bill Kwon

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It wasn't the popular TV show theme - now University of Hawaii's fight song - that struck me. Rather, it was yet another mental nudge reminding me about the NCAA Final Four and its uncanny Rainbow Connection.

Or, to be precise, the Rainbow Classic connection.

Over the years, Hawaii fans have had a chance to see the present, past or future NCAA champion in the eight-team December basketball tournament.

Indiana twice, North Carolina, Louisville, Duke and Villanova all went on to win the national crown with teams that played in the Rainbow Classic. This season could be no exception. UMass, which won the 1995 Rainbow Classic, could well join the ranks.

During the 1992-93 season, three of the four teams in the Final Four had played in the Rainbow Classic that December. North Carolina, which had lost to Michigan in the classic final, came back to beat the Wolverines for the national title.

It wouldn't be surprising if the NCAA championship game at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., next Monday is a rematch of the Rainbow Classic final last December at the Special Events Arena.

UMass won the Rainbow Classic title by beating Syracuse, 65-47. The rematch can happen if UMass beats Kentucky, in what many consider to be the real championship game, and Syracuse gets by surprising Mississippi State in Saturday's semifinals.

"Wouldn't that be something?," said UH basketball coach Riley Wallace. "But I don't think it'll happen."

The spoiler? Mississippi State, predicts Wallace.

"I think Mississippi State has a chance to win it all. They're my dark horse pick," says Wallace, who will be leaving tomorrow night to take in his 25th straight Final Four.

The big reason is the Bulldogs' 7-foot Erick Dampier.

"Pete Newell told me last year that he had Dampier in his Big Man Camp and he never saw anyone who had a better work ethic. He told me that Dampier's going to be a big-time pro," Wallace said.

"Their win over Kentucky in the SEC tournament was no fluke. They're proved it by beating Connecticut and Cincinnati," Wallace said. "The talent's there, and they play whatever game they have to play."

As for the UMass-Kentucky game, Wallace likes the Wildcats, even though the Minutemen won the Rainbow Classic. He thinks the difference will be Kentucky's depth.

"They are so deep. They have 11 McDonald's All-Americans on the team," Wallace said. That's why Rick Pitino can keep putting fresh guys in there to play pressure defense the whole game, Wallace noted.

"And you have a Kentucky team that's definitely focused. The loss to Mississippi State was a wake-up call," Wallace added.

Despite beating Kentucky earlier this season, UMass finds itself an 81/2-point underdog against the Wildcats. Talk about a lack of respect for the No. 1 team in the nation, with a 35-1 record.

Wallace is more impressed with the UMass guards, Carmelo Travieso and Edgar Padilla, than he is with the team's All-American, Marcus Camby. "They dismantled Georgetown's press," said Wallace, who feels they could neutralize Kentucky's pressing defense as well.

"But Pitino learned something since the game with UMass. Kentucky's playing some half-court basketball now instead of just taking threes, which can be one and out."

Kentucky's also not without a Hawaii connection of its own, having played in the 1993 Maui Invitational. It was a homecoming of sorts for Rick Pitino, who began his coaching career as an assistant and then interim coach at the University of Hawaii.

In fact, Pitino was courtside at two Rainbow Classics in the early 1970s. So there's a Rainbow Connection after all.