Usually a basketball team will be happy if it can turn in its uniforms in March and say that it had a good season. Strategy pays off for
fresh SeasidersWagner gave his team time off
early on, and BYUH has won
9 of its last 11 gamesBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comBut Brigham Young-Hawaii won't be happy unless it can come home and say it put together three good seasons in five months.
The Seasiders start the third part of the season tomorrow in San Bernardino, Calif., where they will play Seattle Pacific in the first round of the NCAA Division II tournament.
After playing through November and December with a 9-4 record and his first appearance in the Yahoo! Sports Invitational Championship game, coach Ken Wagner gave his team a 20-day break to visit their families before beginning conference play. To do so, he had to cancel one game and reschedule another.
When the Seasiders finally came back to begin their "second season," they lost at home to Hawaii-Hilo largely because his team was rusty from the long layoff. It was their only conference loss at home.
After the game, Wagner defended his choice by saying that he hoped it would pay off later in the season when his team was fresher than the others. Then he was surprised when it worked to perfection.
"I don't think I am going to be doing that again," Wagner said. "It was almost like we had two seasons, that nothing we did before conference mattered. But it may have helped us when we started to feel the pressure."
Brigham Young-Hawaii is in San Bernardino, Calif., for the single-elimination Division II tournament Seasiders in the tourney
Tomorrow: vs. Seattle Pacific, 3:30 p.m. Hawaii time
* Friday: vs. Humboldt State, 3:30 p.m. Hawaii time
* Saturday: Regional championship, 5 p.m. Hawaii time
Radio: Live, 650-AM
* If they win the previous day
The Seasiders lost three of their first four games after the long break, then went on a tear in which they won nine of their last 11, including their last three to clinch a share of the Pacific West Conference title.
They lost to Hawaii-Hilo on Feb. 23 and it finally dawned on the talented group that there was a chance that it would not get a chance to represent Hawaii in the national tournament if it didn't get to work. That is where the reserve energy paid off.
"We did a lot of work after that loss to Hilo," Wagner said. "Attitude-wise, I don't think they realized what it would take to win until that loss. You have to remember that we came in young and with a lot of new guys. Once they got scared and got an agenda, they were so good and worked real hard."
The Seasiders will need to continue that hard work if they want to win in the third -- and most important -- part of their schedule. They go into the tournament as the sixth seed facing No. 9 Seattle Pacific (23-4) and will have to win on the road, where they are 8-4. They have never beaten Seattle Pacific in three meetings, and the Falcons have been in the tournament in each of the past five years, one of only four schools that can make that claim.
Should the Seasiders beat those odds and advance, they would play No. 5 Humboldt State (24-3), which trounced them 119-84 in the second game of the season but has lost its last two games after starting the season 24-1.
The regional championship game is Saturday.
BYUH Athletics