Day’s Word
MARCH Madness! If ever there was a more appropriate name for a sporting event, I've never heard it. UH deserves to play
in NCAA tourneyPlayers live for it; coaches get anxiety attacks; sousa players have more air in their lungs; cheerleaders jump higher ... and Dick Vitale? Well, I'm not sure I want to know.
But I give Dicky V credit. After all, it was Vitale and ESPN who turned a simple college basketball tournament into a month-long frenzy of higher earning. These four weeks have beefed up the coffers of college athletic departments better than anything since some guy with a weed whacker in his hand said, "Shreveport's nice, let's play a bowl game down there next December, OK?"
And so the Rainbows find themselves firmly in the middle of it all. For the first time since Riley Wallace became head coach 10 years ago, Hawaii has played well enough during the regular season to warrant a bid to the so-called "Big Dance."
The 'Bows could have locked up a spot to the NCAA Tournament with a win over Fresno State last Thursday, but hey, the Bulldogs decided to play defense like the Western Athletic Conference has rarely seen. Whattaya gonna do? Especially when your big man, the absolute key to your own inside defense, is sitting in sweats at the end of the bench?
But this is a bunch of players that is resilient, if not the most athletic.
Players get booted off the team and they win anyway.
The starting center, Seth Sundberg, has his spleen lacerated by the elbow of some short guy from the Air Force Academy. If it's any other team, that player's elbow lands in Sundberg's chest and the big guy laughs it off. But it's not, and he doesn't. And the Rainbows win anyway.
The guy driving the team bus on the way to Laramie does a Sandra Bullock impersonation, hitting a car from behind and shaking the heck out of the coach and the players. And they win anyway.
Who knows if the Rainbows will be able to pull off another upset of 14th-ranked New Mexico Thursday night, assuming the Lobos beat San Jose State. The combination of Kenny Thomas and Charles Smith was too much for Hawaii two weeks ago. The Rainbows can handle teams that are strong either inside or outside, but they struggle against teams that are strong in both areas.
NO matter what happens, though, this team should be in the NCAA Tournament. I have a hunch they will be, although the knuckleheads on the selection committee have nearly always gone with the usual, safe suspects from the Big 10 (or is it 11?) and the Big Least. If they do, the 'Bows have every right to feel more than a little burned.
I've heard a few local media types rationalize that even the NIT would be a nice reward for a team that wasn't supposed to achieve as much as it has. To those folks, and any others who think the same way, I politely reply: Get real.
Playing in the NIT is playing for 65th. I've heard the argument. Blasphemous words like, "If someone told you at the beginning of the year that the Rainbows would be playing in the NIT, you'd have taken that."
Many would have. But this has been an unlikely year all the way through. Shoot for the stars and forget about the moon. When was the last time the Rainbows got so much national publicity for actually winning games? It has been a while.
It seems almost hard to believe, but this team has somehow become the darling of the West. It doesn't hurt having Larry Beil telling everyone watching SportsCenter that "his Rainbows" are for real. Better yet, the team's improbable sweep of Wyoming and Colorado State got the attention of Dicky V. Suddenly, he loves Anthony Carter, Alika Smith is a PTPer and the Rainbows are on everyone else's dance card.
Strap on your sneakers.