Wednesday, March 3, 1999
Healthy Flowers
By Jerry Campany
key to HPU
tourney hopes
Special to the Star BulletinHawaii Pacific's title hopes rest in the left shoe of Willie Flowers.
The Sea Warriors earned an at-large bid the the NCAA II regionals at Ellensburg, Wash. March 4-7, after suffering a 76-56 beating at the hands of the region's top seed, Central Washington.
Flowers sat out that game with a sprained ankle, but he won't be kept out of this game so easily.
"Sitting by and watching my teammates get beat was very tough," Flowers said. "If there is any doubt as to whether or not I can play, I'm not even getting on the plane. I never want to sit through something like that again."
Flowers did board the plane and told head coach Tony Sellitto he is at 100 percent.
For Sea Warrior forward Stacey Nolan, the importance of having Flowers healthy and on the floor can't be stressed enough.
"It is like the spark plugs in a car," Nolan said. "You can get where you are going, but you won't get there fast enough."
Hawaii Pacific opens up the regional against the same Seattle Pacific team that took them to overtime before losing last week, and will face defending NCAA II champion UC-Davis if they advance.
After that, Shannon Lee and the rest of the Sea Warriors may have a chance to exact revenge on Central Washington, the top seed and host of the tournament.
Lee has been held to 5-22 shooting with 11 turnovers against Wildcat point guard Derrick Elliott in two losses, despite being chosen over Elliott for the conference all-star team.
Elliott figures that the Sea Warriors should stay home and save money on airfare.
"As far as I am concerned, they (HPU) have already been eliminated," Elliott said. "We beat them by 20 on their home floor and I own their point guard, so they should just stay home."
Lee might have something to say about that, but the Sea Warriors have a long way to travel before then.
