Mainland programs
leave PacWest

Only Hawaii's NCAA D-II schools
will stay in the conference

Montana State-Billings and Western New Mexico decided to leave the Pacific West Conference for the Heartland Conference in Texas yesterday, leaving Hawaii's four NCAA Division II programs alone on an island.

The change becomes effective July 1, when the PacWest will no longer be recognized by the NCAA. The conference will be made up of Brigham Young-Hawaii, Chaminade and Hawaii Pacific on Oahu and UH-Hilo on the Big Island. It takes six schools for a conference to be recognized by the NCAA.

"I look at it as a positive," BYUH athletic director and basketball coach Ken Wagner said. "I think we're fine and in the long run it's probably a good thing. It just wasn't a good fit with Billings and New Mexico."

Hawaii's four programs joined the NCAA in 1998 and endured a defection of 10 PacWest teams in 2001. Then, as now, the reason for the defections was the high cost of travel to Hawaii.

BYUH President Eric B. Shumway will serve as the chief officer of what remains of the PacWest and wants to explore ways to keep the conference together, including inviting teams from the West Coast to join.

"We look forward to this change," Shumway wrote in a statement issued by BYUH. "The presidents of the four Hawaii universities are willing to temporarily give up this automatic recognition as a message to the NCAA about the solidarity of our relationships."

The most immediate change will come in the fall, when Hawaii's D-II volleyball teams will not be able to play for an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament. Instead, Hawaii's teams will have to make their tournaments with at-large bids. The current basketball season will not be affected.

"It's very disappointing," Hawaii Pacific senior women's administrator and volleyball coach Tita Ahuna said. "We don't have an automatic berth anymore and will have to schedule more games on the mainland, if we can find games. And that is a big 'if.' "

Ahuna said Hawaii's coaches will meet next week to come up with a plan for the season schedule.