Hawaii waits for Wallace; Gueye returns to practice

A day after one of its captains returned to practice, the Hawaii basketball team expected to have head coach Riley Wallace rejoin the team.

Wallace, UH's 20th year coach, missed the Rainbow Warriors' last two practices Friday and yesterday while undergoing medical tests at the Kaiser Medical Center. He went in for a checkup on Friday and returned yesterday for a follow-up test. Associate coach Bob Nash said Wallace should be back for this afternoon's scheduled workout.

"I think his exams and everything went well, so we expect him to be back in practice tomorrow," Nash said after the Rainbows' practice yesterday at the Stan Sheriff Center.

After taking the weekend off, the Rainbows got back to work yesterday with Nash and fellow assistants Jackson Wheeler and Alika Smith running practice.

The Rainbows (4-4) are in the middle of a 10-day break between games that coincides with final exams this week. They return to action on Saturday against Northwestern State at the Sheriff Center.

"We had some competition, tested their manhood on a couple of drills and they responded," Nash said.

"You get used to (Wallace) screaming and yelling and doing his thing, doing it his way. The thing we wanted to do today was just get some of the conditioning back after having two days off and slowly work our way back into it."

"Hopefully he'll be back and we'll be back to our normal routine," senior guard Matt Lojeski said, "and everything will be back on track and focusing on our next opponent."

Senior forward Ahmet Gueye returned for yesterday's workout after taking five days off to rest an aching knee. He underwent surgery in the offseason to repair a torn ligament in his right knee and sat out last week's practices to rest it following UH's loss to UNLV.

Gueye will get regular rest during the season, practicing two days and taking a day off.

"It's a little bit stiff and sore, but hopefully I'll get it back this week," said Gueye, UH's leading rebounder with 7.5 per game. "(The time off) helped a lot, my knee was killing me. Now I've had a good rest, and I had a good rehab."

Gueye, a co-captain, was running with the first team along with Lojeski, guard Matt Gibson and forwards Bobby Nash and P.J. Owsley.

The Rainbows will start studying Northwestern State today while also focusing on their final exams that run through the week.

"That's how it is," Gueye said. "You've got academics and you have to take care of it, and when you're on the court you have to concentrate and try to get it done."