Sunday, December 30, 2001
[ WAHINE BASKETBALL ]
The snow was coming down yesterday morning and visibility at the Boise, Idaho, airport was limited by the fog that had settled in overnight. Snow blows Wahine off
schedule in TexasBy Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comBy the time the Hawaii women's basketball team's flight to Salt Lake City was cleared for takeoff, the Wahine were an hour and a half behind schedule. They missed their connecting flight to El Paso, the last one of the day out of Salt Lake City.
Despite attempts to find alternate flights today, nothing was available to accommodate the team. After trying to contact Western Athletic Conference commissioner Karl Benson and discussing the situation with assistant commissioner Jeff Hurd, Hawaii coach Vince Goo decided to bring the Wahine home and not play today's scheduled game at Texas-El Paso.
"The best they could do was get us into Dallas (yesterday) at 8 p.m. and then we would be on standby to El Paso," Goo said.
"That means we have no practice Saturday, no shoot around Sunday and we have no guarantee we would get to El Paso in time for a 2 p.m. game. And, if we played later than 2 p.m., we would miss our flight back to Los Angeles and possibly be stuck there for two days.
"The Miners can't play (tomorrow) because of the Sun Bowl. The only thing that was definite was we could get reservations for a non-stop flight from Salt Lake City to Honolulu (today)."
The schools will try to reschedule the game for later in the season. The longest UH road trip is early in February, when the Wahine play at San Jose State Feb. 2, then have four days off before playing at Louisiana Tech on Feb. 7. They also play at Southern Methodist Feb. 9 and don't play again until meeting Tulsa at home Feb. 14.
"We'll work it out with our coaches, then get approval from our administration and the WAC," Goo said.
"The disappointing thing is we told our players before we left on the trip they would be coming home with two victories, but we're only coming home with one."
UH athletic director Hugh Yoshida said he did not think Hawaii would have to forfeit the game.
"The weather is beyond our control," he said when told of the situation by the Star-Bulletin. "We have to talk to UTEP and the conference about rescheduling the game."
UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii
