Wallace going
back homeESPN's Bracket Busters will
take Hawaii to Southern
Illinois near his hometownWAC men's standings
One of the Hawaii basketball team's longest road trips will take Riley Wallace close to home.
The Rainbow Warriors visit the home state of their head coach to take on Southern Illinois in the nationally televised finale to ESPN's second annual Bracket Busters Saturday on Feb. 21. The pairings for the event highlighting "mid-major" conferences were announced yesterday with Hawaii and Southern Illinois drawing the showcase matchup that will air on ESPN.
"It's a tough road, but you have to do it if you want the exposure," said Wallace, whose hometown of Jerseyville is about a three-hour drive away from the SIU campus in Carbondale, Ill.
Hawaii's detour through the Midwest will come in the middle of an important Western Athletic Conference road trip. After playing at Boise State on Feb. 18, the Rainbows will fly from San Francisco to St. Louis and take a two-hour bus ride to Carbondale. The Bracket Busters game tips off at 11 p.m. Central time (7 p.m. Hawaii time).
Following the game, the team will have to wake up at 7 a.m. the next day to bus back to St. Louis and fly to West Texas, where the 'Bows will play UTEP on Feb. 23.
The Rainbows have proven to be skillful travelers this season, as their 4-1 mark on the road this season will attest. After losing at Rice last Thursday, the Rainbows rallied to knock off Tulsa in double overtime two days later.
"We just have to stay focused," UH sophomore Julian Sensley said. "I think if we keep playing the way we do and stay tight as a team ... we could go to Alaska, it doesn't matter, I think we'll do fine."
Southern Illinois is 16-2 this season and 10-0 in the Missouri Valley Conference. Hawaii enters the week at 15-4 overall and 7-2 in the WAC, good for a tie for first place.
After Gonzaga, which is ranked No. 8 in both national polls, SIU and Hawaii have the best RPIs of the 46 teams entered in Bracket Busters. The Salukis are 31st while Hawaii checks in at 37th this week.
Hawaii is among five WAC teams participating in the event that offers national exposure for 46 schools representing 11 mid-major conferences. Ten of the 23 games will be televised on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN regional outlets.
Hawaii is the only WAC member going on the road for Bracket Busters. The Rainbows won at Kent State in last year's inaugural event.
Other games involving WAC teams are: Louisiana-Lafayette at Rice, East Tennessee State at Fresno State, Gonzaga at Tulsa (on ESPN2) and Toledo at Nevada.
Wallace said he doesn't know much about Southern Illinois, but will get a chance to scout the Salukis on Saturday when they play at Creighton in an MVC showdown that will be televised on ESPN2.
First-year SIU coach Matt Painter took over the program last spring when Bruce Weber accepted the coaching job at Illinois.
The Salukis went 28-8 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 in the 2001-02 season and ended last year with a 72-71 loss to Missouri in the first round of the Big Dance.
SIU guard Darren Brooks leads the MVC in scoring this season with 16.7 points per game and is the Salukis' top rebounder at 6.4 per game. SIU's tallest players are 6-foot-9, giving UH the height advantage in the paint.
"It'll be another one where it'll be a matchup of bigs vs. quicks," Wallace said.
Although the Salukis are a mystery to the Rainbows right now, they know what to expect when they arrive in Illinois.
"It's probably freezing up there," Sensley said.
Working overtime: The bench has been a foreign place for Sensley lately.
The UH forward has not left the floor in UH's last three games, and played all 50 minutes against Tulsa on Saturday. He finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds to help him earn WAC Player of the Week honors, the first for a UH player this season.
Sensley said he still had a lot left in the tank at the end of Saturday's 73-71 classic with the Golden Hurricane.
"I could have played another overtime," he said. "When you're playing in close games like that, you're not tired at all. You have so much adrenaline in you, your body's excited. After the game I could have still been playing."
UH forward Phil Martin also played the entire game. For the third time in as many overtime games this season, Martin hit a putback in the waning seconds of regulation to send the game into the extra period.
Poll watching: UH dropped a few points in one national poll and picked up a couple in another this week. The 'Bows received seven points in the Associated Press poll released yesterday, down from 14 last week. They got six points in the USA Today/ESPN poll, up from four the previous week.
UH is the highest-rated WAC team in both polls. Also receiving recognition are Rice (four points in both polls), UTEP (two points USA Today/ESPN) and Nevada (one point USA Today/ESPN).
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WAC men’s standings
Conference All Games W L Pct. W L Pct. Hawaii 7 2 .778 15 4 .789 Rice 7 2 .778 15 5 .750 Nevada 7 3 .700 13 6 .684 UTEP 6 3 .667 15 4 .789 Fresno St. 6 3 .667 10 8 .556 Boise St. 4 5 .444 12 7 .632 Louisiana Tech 4 5 .444 10 9 .526 Tulsa 3 7 .300 7 12 .368 SMU 2 7 .222 8 11 .421 San Jose St. 0 9 .000 5 14 .263 Thursday's games
Fresno State at Louisiana Tech, 3 p.m.
Rice at UTEP, 4:05 p.m.
Tulsa at Boise State, 4:30 p.m.
Nevada at SMU, 3 p.m.Saturday's games
Rice at Boise State, 10 a.m.
Nevada at Louisiana Tech, 3 p.m.
Fresno State at SMU, 3 p.m.
Tulsa at UTEP, 4:05 p.m.
San Jose State at Hawaii, 7:05 p.m.
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