IT'S a new year and I feel better already. Can’t get excited
about Princeton’s
brand of ballWhy? Well, for one thing, 1999 can't be any worse for the University of Hawaii Rainbows in football. At least we all hope so.
I'm also glad that the Rainbow Classic is over and done with. It wasn't a keeper if you're keeping a scrapbook of its 35-year history even if the basketball 'Bows did win a game, avoiding the morning consolation bracket.
Outrigger Hotels might have been the title sponsor. But if Princeton ever gets invited back, the makers of No-Doz should come with check in hand. The Tigers can sleep-walk their opponents to distraction. They won the tournament championship despite scoring only 147 points in their three victories.
They got game, all right. A slow game. H-1 rush-hour traffic moved faster than Princeton's guards coming down court.
This Rainbow Classic was tailor-made for them. Take one part ball-control tactics, add the experimental 45-second clock which, thankfully, ran out for the rest of the season and stir.
Bo-ring.
But I had a good time. I brought a book to read.
The same couldn't be said for the thousand or so fans remaining from the turnstile crowd of 4,386 that watched Texas beat host Hawaii, 84-72, for third place earlier that night.
IF nothing else, the latest Rainbow Classic set a record for no-shows. There were 8,111 tickets issued for the final night and 3,747 didn't use their tickets. The no-show count was more than 5,000 on the second night, when the Rainbows didn't play.
"Our fans need to be better than that," said UH coach Riley Wallace, dismayed that so few stayed to watch the championship game. "We can't be in the championship game every time."
It also didn't help that the Rainbows had to play the first game of the championship bracket doubleheader the last two nights just when people were getting home from work.
The 5:35 and 5:07 starting times just weren't conducive to big attendances. Thus the second games were played in front of studio audiences, which was all right with ESPN since it wanted to feature Princeton for its East Coast market.
AS it turned out, ESPN televised all three Princeton games. What a cure for insomniacs watching in the early morning back east.
"Us playing early didn't help," admitted Wallace.
It was the price UH had to pay for national television exposure of the Rainbow Classic, according to athletic director Hugh Yoshida.
ESPN gave the university $125,000 for telecast rights, not a trifle sum. So I guess it had the right to call the shots.
Still, you have to wonder if it was worth it.
Not that it might have helped this year's Rainbows -- a very green-horn team -- but the early starts took away the home-crowd factor.
That, coupled with some inconsistent officiating that often seemed to favor the visiting teams on close calls, didn't help. I'm not saying that the officials are deliberately doing so. It's just they seem to be bending over backward to prove that they're not partial to the home team.
Either way, it doesn't help the 'Bows, who need all the help they can get this season.
Which reminds me. We all know the Rainbows are having a difficult time winning , but I wish the UH pep band would stop playing the theme to 'Mission Impossible' at the start of every game.
The team knows it without having to be constantly reminded.