Sports Update
‘That magic doesn't
come along very often’Riley Wallace faces the task of replacing
By Cindy Luis
a team that was truly irreplaceable
Star-BulletinHow to replace the irreplaceable. That was the task that faced Riley Wallace when he went into work Saturday morning. For the first time since October's Midnight Ohana, the University of Hawaii men's basketball coach had no team to take to practice. Gym II was empty, matching the feeling in Wallace's heart.
It will take a while to recover from Thursday night's emotional 85-83 loss to Fresno State in the NIT quarterfinals. This was a team of overachievers that put Hawaii on the basketball map, on national sports talks shows and in Internet chat rooms.
"The sun came up and life goes on," said Wallace, concluding his 11th head coaching season at Manoa. "It's relaxing in some ways, but I still wish we had another week of the season. I wanted so bad for these kids to go to New York (site of the NIT final four). I wanted it for me, our coaches and the state of Hawaii so bad you don't don't know. We came as close as we could without going.
"I've never coached a team in 30 years that could play the way they did together. When you thought they were down and out, they fooled all of us. That's why I labled them special."
In many respects, the Rainbows were extraordinary. They became the first Hawaii team to have consecutive 20-win seasons since the Fabulous Five in 1970-72, the first to draw over 200,000 fans at home in a season (211,520), selling out 13 times in 22 dates at the Stan Sheriff Center.
"We had sellouts before," said Wallace. "But they were coming to see the opponents. This year, they were coming to see the Rainbows.
"It's going to be very challenging to duplicate this team's success. There will be another AC Carter, there will be another Alika Smith. But we probably won't have the blend, the friendship, the workability that made this team so special. That magic doesn't come along very often."
Les Murakami needs one more win to reach 1,000
Nine hundred and ninety nine down and one to go.The next University of Hawaii win is victory No. 1,000 for head baseball coach Les Murakami.
Friday night's 5-1 triumph over Fresno State is of far greater importance to the UH skipper than just another number in a countdown process that inevitably will land Murakami in elite company.
For the first time this season, the Rainbows (19-10 overall, 3-7 conference) won the opening game of a Western Athletic Conference West Division series. They did it with solid pitching and timely hitting against one of the premier college pitchers, 6-foot-5 junior right-hander Jeff Weaver.
UH starter Troy Yoshimasu pitched creditable ball for six innings before leaving with a blister on the middle finger of his left hand. He had battled FSU (13-16, 4-3) to a 1-1 standoff at that point.
"His job was to match up, keep us in the game, believe in his stuff and make the pitch," UH pitching coach Carl Furutani said.
The Bulldogs, prone to stretches this season where getting the key hit was just a wish, made two glaring errors on the base paths to help Yoshimasu escape with a touch of Houdini magic.
'Bows make valiant effort in loss to UCLA
Yes, the chances of hosting the conference tournament championship now appear slim to none.And, yes, the Rainbows took it on the chin from UCLA for the fifth straight match.
But even their toughest critic, Hawaii head coach Mike Wilton, found it impossible to be angry with them.
"There's a lot of consolation," said Wilton. "We competed tonight after digging some very large holes for ourselves. We competed and got back in the match. Some of the guys had their chins down, but no way, I told them they should get those chins up."
The Bruins, ranked No. 2 in both the USA Today/AVCA Coaches and Volleyball magazine polls, defeated the No. 4 Rainbows, 15-9, 15-13, 11-15, 15-8, before a turnstile crowd of 5,759 Friday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The loss dropped Hawaii to 10-3 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Pacific Division standings and 15-5 overall.
UCLA is 13-2 in the MPSF's Mountain Division and 20-2 overall.
A look at the stat sheet tells why Wilton was satisfied with Hawaii's effort.
The Rainbows made 86 kills to UCLA's 84. They had 18 team blocks to UCLA's 12, and they had 62 digs to the Bruins' 57.
They also had only 15 service errors to UCLA's 17.
