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Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
Rainbows had the
answers in epic gameWE'RE all exhausted. Everyone who played in last night's game. Anyone who was there, or watched it on TV.
It was an epic battle, last night's NIT matchup. Shot for shot. Steal for steal. Run for run. Performance for performance.
JC Carter, playing the game of his life for Hawaii. Nebraska's Brian Conklin, a 6-foot-11 string bean (corn stalk?) who went on a second-half run in which it seemed he would never miss.
It was a game in which everyone in the arena, at some point, stood up, and looked up, and raised their arms to the sky and smiled. A few even held their heads in their hands.
So happy to be there. So happy to be alive. So happy that they couldn't believe they had seen what they just saw. But they knew that they had.
It was that kind of game.
The Rainbows ran. And dunked. And alley-ooped (and Julian Sensley foiled one). And then Carter channeled Magic Johnson with a no-look pass and 360 follow-through while wearing an "in the zone" look on his face that I can't even begin to describe.
And the roof rattled.
And it had only just begun.
"It was just a great atmosphere," said Conklin, who was so good he signed autographs for Hawaii fans after the game.
This game had everything. Emotion. Noise. The two teams were like boxers, heavyweights in the last rounds, swinging on postseason fumes. All the travel was taking effect, and the fatigue, and the long season that all came down to this. But they didn't want to stop now. They wouldn't. And both teams kept swinging, fighting to keep playing basketball in March.
It was one of those games. Dueling masterpieces. Tit for tat. Carter's Picasso vs. Conklin's Van Gogh.
Yeah, Carter's game was jagged, that way, with four fouls, and the way he hurt himself, needlessly, foolishly, punching a puka in a courtside sign.
"I think that's great," Riley Wallace would say. "It shows emotion, the kid's fired up. We don't want him breaking signs, but that just shows how much heart he has."
All the unorthodox angles added up this time. There was beauty in those kapakahi lines. His 3s dropped. His passes worked. He saved balls and stole them. He was everywhere.
It was the game of his life.
"Division I, yeah," Carter would allow.
But then his fist went through an ad, and then they broke for the half, and then Nebraska came roaring back to life.
What had Riley Wallace told the Rainbows at halftime?
"Basically, what we let them do," Sensley said.
"The second half," Wallace said, "was the Nebraska we watched on film."
"Our guys responded," Conklin said.
But the 'Bows had some answers left in them, too. Every one, in fact.
The Rainbows needed a shot. The Rainbows needed a stop. Bob Nash went to the towel. The Stan Sheriff Center went insane.
"The kids wouldn't quit for them," Wallace said. "They (the crowd) wouldn't let them quit."
Jeff Blackett hit his seventh straight shot, and shook his head as he ran back down the court. Sensley rebounded again. And Phil Martin did, and hit two key shots. And Michael Kuebler stole the ball.
Kuebler would miss four free throws in a row that could have put the game away.
But Hawaii would not lose. Not this team. Not on this night.
They did the math and gave Nebraska a free 3 at the buzzer, and the Huskers made it, of course. The Rainbows had escaped, by a point. They couldn't even celebrate. They were too tired. Both teams just shook hands quietly. They had nothing left to give.
It was that kind of game.
Riley Wallace grabbed the microphone to yell at the crowd, then. And the people went wild. You couldn't understand what the coach was saying. But it didn't matter. It was enough that he said it, as an exhausted sellout crowd went nuts.
One final time.
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Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com