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Tuesday, March 13, 2001
Rainbows DAYTON, Ohio -- The rain hasn't stopped in the Buckeye State's sixth-largest city, but the Rainbows arrived yesterday.
getting ready for
Syracuse
Wallace trying to
keep players focused on
playing OrangemenWAHINE NIT TICKETS
By Dave Reardon
Star-BulletinA little over an hour after the landing gear touched down in the host town of its NCAA Tournament Midwest subregional, the University of Hawaii basketball team jumped off the charter bus and practiced at Wright State's spacious, modern athletic facilities.
Practice started a little sloppy, but the precision of the team that has won seven of its last eight games resurfaced by the end of the workout.
Was it really just two days prior in Tulsa that the Rainbows shocked everyone but themselves by completing a blitzkrieg of the Western Athletic Conference Tournament field, earning their first Big Dance invite in seven years?
After some well-deserved rest Sunday, the team flew to Dayton via Atlanta.
Hawaii (17-13, 12th seed) gave itself four days and a wake-up to prepare for No. 17 Syracuse (24-8, fifth seed), the same school that knocked out UH in the first round in 1994.
The estimated starting time for Friday's game -- the last of four to be played at the University of Dayton that day -- is 5:10 p.m. HST.
The Orangemen were expected to hit town today or tomorrow, with star guard Preston Shumpert's scratched cornea improving; he worked out with his teammates yesterday, but did not scrimmage.
UH coach Riley Wallace said he believes his team is the first of the eight to set up camp here. He hopes it will be among the last two to leave, after Sunday's second-round games.
Intermittent rain and see-your-breath chill in the 40s persisted through the afternoon and into the night. It was saimin weather.
Most of the team settled for pasta instead at an Olive Garden -- everyone in Hawaii knows about the chain via TV commercials but one has yet to open in the islands.
That's about as exotic as it gets in down-to-earth Dayton, at least around the exit areas of this stretch of I-75. The home of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base might be the best place possible for Wallace to draw up battle plans and re-hone his team to game-ready sharpness.
Distractions are inevitable. Wallace said he had 15 messages when he arrived, many of them media requests, many of them ticket requests. Part of his job now is to decide who gets front-row seats on the bandwagon.
Another is keeping the players focused on basketball and not the hype. Since the Rainbows are an older, relatively mature group, it probably won't be a problem. The setting helps, too.
"We'd rather be here than in New Orleans," Wallace said with a grin.
Certainly, Needmore Road can't compare with Bourbon Street, even though there is a "Needmore Beer Drive Thru" between the team hotel and the practice facility.
The players would surely prefer the Big Easy, but Dayton was just fine with All-WAC junior guard Predrag Savovic. Slobodan Savovic is also a junior guard, for Ohio State; he made the hour drive from Columbus to visit his older brother.
The two alternately hugged and slugged, like all athletic brothers do. They speculated what might have been, especially considering the Buckeyes are a No. 5 seed, and would have matched up with the Rainbows if they'd been picked for the same regional.
"This is great, this is good," said Predrag, who hadn't seen his brother since last summer.
Slobodan briefed Predrag on the Orangemen's strengths and weaknesses -- at least what they were over three months ago.
Ohio State lost to Syracuse, 77-66, on Nov. 24.
"Syracuse is really athletic and they have a lot of big guys. But I know they (the Rainbows) are capable of doing it," Slobodan said. "This year I got to see (Hawaii) play on TV a lot, and they are shooting the ball great.
"Hawaii will have a lot of fans at the game, because a lot of people I know will be going to the game and cheering for them," the younger brother said.
If Little Savo is as adept at making friends as Big Savo, the Rainbows will be well-supported.
Slobodan leaves tomorrow with the rest of the Buckeyes for Greensboro, N.C., where Ohio State plays Utah State in a South Regional first-round game Thursday.
"One Savo leaving Ohio, another coming in," Slobodan said.
They hope two enter Minneapolis at the end of the month. For the Final Four.
TIP-INS:
Hawaii post Troy Ostler practiced yesterday, two days after aggravating his left-ankle sprain from earlier in the season. "I'm about 95 percent," Ostler said. ... Hawaii has played five teams in the tournament (UCLA, Georgia State, Cal State Northridge, Tennessee and Fresno State three times). The Rainbows are 3-4 against them. ... Former UH assistant coach Rick Pitino, who recently left the Boston Celtics head coaching job, is here. He's on the broadcast crew of tonight's play-in game here between Northwestern State and Winthrop. ... UH post Haim Shimonovich met a friend from his native Israel at practice: Israel Sheinfeld, a 6-foot-11 junior center at Wright State, who encouraged Shimonovich to play college ball in the U.S.
UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii
