RAINBOW BASKETBALL

ASSOCIATED PRESS / PAUL SANCYA
Hawaii's Nerijus Puida sits glumly on the bench near the end
of the Rainbows' 79-69 loss to Syracuse last night.

UH returns tomorrow

Rainbows get over
disappointment of loss quickly

By Dave Reardon
Star-Bulletin

DAYTON, Ohio >> When the University of Hawaii men's basketball team arrived at their hotel after last night's game, it was hard to tell the Rainbows had lost, 79-69, to Syracuse in their first-round NCAA Tournament game.

The applause and well-wishes from a gauntlet of about 50 family, friends, fans and UH staff was as heartfelt as if after a victory.

"It's the aloha spirit," said junior guard Mike McIntyre of Long Beach, Calif. "That's what makes me love Hawaii more and more."

The Rainbows will return to Hawaii tomorrow in a 3:15 p.m. Delta flight out of Dallas. Head coach Riley Wallace and assistant coach Jackson Wheeler, however, will be heading to Wichita, Kan., for recruiting.

Both Savos out

Hawaii guard Predrag Savovic got over the loss quickly. He joked with his brother, Slobodan, who plays for Ohio State; OSU lost to Utah State, 77-68, in overtime Thursday.

"Ha," Predrag said. "I lasted longer in the NCAAs than you." Slobodan replied, "Do you know what Final Four is?"

Slobodan helped the Buckeyes into the NCAA semifinals two years ago.

Predrag complimented Syracuse's play.

"They're a great team, beautiful. The best team we played," he said. "We had our chances, some open looks at the end, but it was their night. I'm not happy, we could have done better, but we will have other chances."

Savovic, who will be a senior next season, said he is already looking forward to a return trip to the tournament.

He also said he is not worried about an issue that came up Monday, when the Dayton Daily News reported that he played in a professional league (but not for pay) in his native Yugoslavia before he enrolled at Alabama-Birmingham and transferred to Hawaii.

"I don't want to think about that now," the team's leading scorer said.

Sore stomach

Team captain and starting forward Nerijus Puida came down with food poisoning late Thursday night, limiting his effectiveness in last night's game.

"Nerijus is our energizer," Wallace said. "He was on IVs all day. He plays a lot of games for 40 minutes for us, but he didn't have the energy to go. I know he's hurting that he couldn't help us. He's one of our leaders out there."

In a nutshell

With 600 career victories, Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim has had a lot of practice in breaking down how his team won a game. Here's his succinct take on last night's outcome:

"We got the balls to the right guys. Damone (Brown), Preston (Shumpert) and Allen (Griffin) made big plays for us. I thought we did a good job of defending their 3-point shot.

"We didn't give them too many open ones. To win this game, we had to do a respectable job against the 3-point shot. If we play it the right way they're not going to get good ones, and that's what happened."

Or, as Wallace said, "Their defense turns good shots into bad ones."

Bench lift

Guard Carl English, forward Mindaugas Burneika and post Haim Shimonovich contributed to keep UH in the game off the bench. They combined for 25 points, 16 rebounds and four assists.

"They all kind of know their roles," Wallace said. "We know Mindaugas is as good a shooter as there is, we thought maybe he'd pop a three and get hot and spark the other guys."

Burneika didn't hit a 3-pointer, but he did score 13 points with five rebounds.

English grabbed a team-high nine rebounds to go with his 10 points.

Shimonovich scored two points with two rebounds.