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Thursday, January 27, 2000
Wallace:
Rebounding the way
to beat San Jose
The Rainbows work hard on their
By Pat Bigold
board game to prepare
for the Spartans
Star-BulletinYou could tell how critical Saturday's game against San Jose State and the rest of the coming three-game homestand is to Hawaii if you peeked in on practice at the upper gym yesterday.
For the first time since preseason, head coach Riley Wallace was conducting his "animal drills."
The drills are basically knock-down, drag-out battles for the rebound.
No-holds-barred. Last man standing.
"We just have to get a little more animal instinct in us where we go out there and get after boards when they get tough," said Wallace.
He's concerned with the fact that the Rainbows were outrebounded at Rice and Tulsa on the recent 1-1 road trip and that San Jose State allows the fewest opponent rebounds of any team in the Western Athletic Conference: an average of 28.5.
"We just got manhandled on the rebounds and that's not our style," said Hawaii senior team captain Marquette Alexander.
"We don't want any team to get the report that, hey, you can just go in and outrebound Hawaii, and push 'em around. We don't want that image at all.
"The animal drills will help us get back our physical intensity."
Of even bigger concern to Wallace is the fact that San Jose State is one of the nation's top defensive teams.
"They're a good defensive team, they control the tempo of a game and they're well-coached," said Wallace.
"We have to work on our rebounding and better execution of our offense," he added.
Hawaii must take advantage of its longest WAC homestand of the season if it wants to climb into the conference race.
The Rainbows (2-3 WAC, 13-5) are hoping to win all three of their games at home -- against the Spartans (2-2 WAC, 11-8), University of Texas-El Paso (1-3 WAC, 10-7) on Feb. 3 and Fresno State (2-1 WAC, 12-7) on Feb. 5.
The Spartans are No. 2 in the NCAA and No. 1 in the WAC in scoring defense, allowing an average of only 55.7 points per game.
Only No. 24 Temple (54.8) is better.
But San Jose State is a study in contrasts.
Although they can put a lid on an offense (they've held opponents to less than 50 points eight times), the Spartans are last in scoring offense (57.1).
The Spartans average the second-fewest turnovers in the WAC (13.8) while Hawaii averages the most (18.5).
No team in the WAC has held its opponents to fewer assists per game (11.4) than San Jose State.
But San Jose State is last in average assists (9.7). The Spartans also top the WAC in defense against field goals (37 percent) but are next-to-last in field goals made (41 percent).
San Jose State has reinstated the two seniors arrested New Year's Eve for possession of a concealed weapon. Eric Griffin, a 6-7 forward, is starting, while 6-3 guard Ben Sanders is coming off the bench.
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
Ka Leo O Hawaii
