As nice as the weather is in Hawaii, Craig Carse would much rather be back home in Montana this weekend. Yellowjackets
here for 3By Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comCarse's Montana State-Billings basketball team visits Hawaii for the second time this season, playing Hawaii Pacific tonight and tomorrow and traveling to Laie to play Brigham Young-Hawaii on Monday.
All that is at stake is the Pacific West Conference lead, as Billings (9-2) leads Hawaii Pacific (5-3) by a game in the loss column, with Hawaii-Hilo (6-4) and BYUH (4-4) both two back. Only Western New Mexico is out of the race, with the leaders only having four games left. The Yellowjackets have built their advantage at home, where they have won 31 straight games to put together the second-longest streak in the nation.
A Hawaii team has not won in Montana since 1998, when both Hawaii Pacific and Brigham Young-Hawaii made the trip and turned the trick. Hawaii's four Division II schools lost every game they've played on MSU-Billings' floor this year, accounting for the Yellowjackets' nine conference wins.
But the story is the opposite when the Yellowjackets board the plane.
Two of Billings' three losses this year have come in Hawaii, to Chaminade (5-5) and Hilo. Before a one-point win over the Silverswords in McCabe Gym earlier this season, Billings had not won in Hawaii since 1998.
"They (the Yellowjackets) are probably not going to lose at home," BYUH coach Ken Wagner said. "The only shot we have at them is here, and we have to take advantage of it. But they are a good team, they beat Chaminade once and Chaminade has been battling everybody."
Billings enters the Mid-Pacific gym up a single game in the loss column on HPU, having lost twice while the Sea Warriors have fallen three times. A sweep by HPU puts the Sea Warriors back on top with only games against winless Western New Mexico, Chaminade and a pair at Hilo left to be played.
And what about Hilo? The Vulcans left on a road trip as the class of the conference, but returned behind the teams that beat them --HPU and Billings. Now, rather than forcing Carse to log on to the Internet late at night trying to learn the outcome of Hilo's games, the Vulcans will be the ones searching for results.
"Heck, yeah, I'll be watching it in the paper," Vulcans coach Jeff Law said. "I think we control our own destiny in that if we can run the table, we won't need help from anybody. If we lose even one though, we have to start rooting for things to happen."
What makes things even more important is that, most likely, Hawaii's only ticket into the regional tournament can be won by beating Billings for the conference title. Although island schools were well represented in the top five of the regional rankings early in the year, their internal battles have dropped them to the bottom five.
MSU-Billings is the highest conference representative at No. 5. Hawaii Pacific and Hilo follow at Nos. 6 and 7, while BYUH is clinging to the No. 10 spot.
The top four teams in the region get tournament spots along with two conference champions.
Look for D-II page Sunday: The Star-Bulletin's Division II page will be in the Sunday edition the next two weeks due to Olympics coverage.