Wahine send message with
win over LaTech

Milia Macfarlane can only hope she has unlimited text-messaging on her cellular phone. If she doesn't, it will be one bill she'll gladly pay.

SMU at Hawaii When: Today, 7 p.m. Where: Stan Sheriff Center Radio/TV: None. Tickets: All seats general admission. $8 adults, $7 seniors. UH students with valid ID, children age 4-18 free. Parking: $3

When Macfarlane woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't go back to sleep yesterday, she began texting her teammates.

"I didn't want to wake them up," Macfarlane said.

The senior guard for the Rainbow Wahine basketball team needn't have worried. Many of her Hawaii teammates were already awake, savoring Thursday's 79-78 upset of Louisiana Tech in overtime.

"I told them, 'Still on Cloud 9. Congrats. We did it together. I love you all. Can you believe it?' " Macfarlane said. "My gosh, this was the highlight of everything. It's so special for Jade (senior Abele) and I to be able to do it the last time we played them here on our home court.

"Last night was absolutely a team effort, the first time that we felt like a family the entire game. Now we have to move on, remain humble and be ready for SMU, because they're going to be ready for us."

Hawaii (9-9, 5-6) had little time to celebrate before being back on the court to prepare for today's 7 p.m. contest with SMU (16-5, 7-5). The Mustangs come in after falling 63-62 to San Jose State in overtime Thursday.

"I know that SMU is upset with us because we beat them at their place," Wahine coach Jim Bolla said of the 70-63 victory in Dallas on Jan. 13. "We're in a position to control our own destiny for the WAC tournament and we need to keep believing we can beat teams. I keep telling the kids that there's no doubt we can beat everyone in the league. We just haven't gotten it done.

"That was a really big win. Our kids played hard, almost gave it away a couple of times, but were strong enough to dig down and get it done at the end."

What Hawaii hopes is to not suffer a collective short-term memory loss. On Thursday, the Wahine beat the Lady Techsters for the first time in 15 meetings with disciplined defense and recognition of open shooters.

Having the hottest hand was junior Amy Sanders, who scored a career-high 27 points. Nearly half of the points came from the free-throw line, where she was 13-for-16.

Sanders also hit what proved to be the game-winner with 7 seconds left in overtime.

"Yes, I wanted to have the ball and have that last shot," Sanders said. "Everyone was really happy at school today, had smiles on their faces. But at the same time we can't get too excited. I've had those really bad games, too, so you can never get too excited or too down.

"I think this sends a message. After beating SMU, they said in the paper, 'Oh, we're losing to teams we shouldn't' and that upset us. We have a good team, so much talent, as much talent as the other teams. We're just not getting it done."

But the Wahine did Thursday, making good on a promise that Bolla had made at the Honolulu Quarterback Club in August. The first-year coach guaranteed Hawaii would beat Louisiana Tech, a team that was coming into the season with just one loss in three WAC seasons, and had been voted by Street & Smith's as the second-best women's college basketball program of all time.

"It's a good win, but we have a Saturday game," said sophomore guard Janevia Taylor, who had 12 points against LaTech. "We want to finish off winning the rest of our games. That's the goal we'll try to accomplish next."

After tonight's game, Hawaii has six games remaining. Just two of those will be at home: Feb. 24 vs. Tulsa and Feb. 26 vs. Rice.

Not many saw Thursday's milestone victory. The turnstile count was 329, with 939 tickets issued.

"Hopefully this will get the fans coming, get them excited," Sanders said. "We've lost so many close games, so to get that far (against LaTech) and lose, it wouldn't have meant as much. People wouldn't have noticed. We need to win these kind of games for people to notice."

Tonight, Hawaii will pay attention to SMU forward Sarah Davis, who had 24 points and 14 rebounds in Thursday's loss. Center Janelle Dodds, third in the conference in scoring (16.0 ppg) had just 10 points before fouling out against the Spartans.

WAC standings

	WAC	Overall
	W	L	Pct.	GB	W	L
Louisiana Tech	10	2	.833	--	14	6
San Jose State	8	3	.727	1 1/2	15	6
Rice	7	4	.636	2 1/2	14	8
SMU	7	5	.583	3	16	6
Tulsa	6	5	.545	3 1/2	14	7
Fresno State	6	6	.500	4	14	7
Hawaii	5	6	.455	4 1/2	9	9
UTEP	4	8	.333	6	9	13
Boise State	3	9	.250	7	8	13
Nevada	2	10	.167	8	6	16

Thursday's games
Hawaii 79, Louisiana Tech 78, OT
Nevada 58, Boise State 53
San Jose State 63, SMU 62, OT
Fresno State 65, UTEP 47
Today's games (All times Hawaii time)
Boise State at Fresno State, 2 p.m.
Tulsa at Rice, 3 p.m.
UTEP at Nevada, 4 p.m.
Louisiana Tech at San Jose State, 5 p.m.
SMU at Hawaii, 7 p.m.