 Printable men's NCAA Tournament bracket for PC and Mac by cnnsi
Printable women's NCAA Tournament bracket for PC and Mac by cnnsi
By Dayton Morinaga
and Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writers
The University of Hawai'i men's basketball team will play 17th-ranked Syracuse Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, it was announced today.
The UH Wahine, meanwhile, will play host to Santa Clara Thursday in the Women's NIT.
The Wahine did not receive an NCAA at-large bid despite their 23-7 record. “For the WAC to get only one team (TCU) in is a travesty,” Wahine coach Vince Goo said. “It’s ridiculous.”
The Rainbow men were assigned to the NCAA Midwest Regional. Their first-round game will be held in Dayton, Ohio.
Hawai'i, the Cinderella champion of the Western Athletic Conference, is the No. 12 seed in the Midwest Region. The Syracuse Orangemen, of the Big East Conference, are the No. 5 seed.
“I like just being in there,” Hawai‘i coach Riley Wallace said. “We don’t have a choice who we play or where we’re seeded. We just have to get ready to play.”
Coincidentally, in UH's last trip to the NCAA Tournament, it lost to Syracuse in the first round, 92-78 on March 17, 1994.
“We were a No. 12 then, and we’re a No. 12 now,” Wallace said. “And we get Syracuse again. All I know is it’ll be a great experience for these kids just like it was back then.”
Syracuse is 24-8 and is ranked 17th by the Associated Press. Syracuse lost to Pittsburgh in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament.
The Orangemen are led by 6-foot-6 junior guard Preston Shumpert, who is averaging a team-high 19.8 points. But Shumpert suffered a scratched cornea in the first half against Pittsburgh on Friday, sat out the rest of the game and is considered questionable for the Hawai'i game.
Damone Brown, a 6-9 senior forward, is averaging 16.8 points and a team-high 8.7 rebounds. Two other Orangemen are scoring in double figures: guards Deshaun Williams (12.4) and Allen Griffin (10.6).
The Rainbows earned an automatic berth with their 78-72 overtime victory over Tulsa Saturday in the Western Athletic Conference tournament championship game.
Hawai'i, at 17-13, has the second-worst record of the 65 tournament teams (Georgia is 16-14). But the Rainbows have won seven of their last eight games, including four on the road.
Hawai'i won as underdogs in all three games of the WAC Tournament in Tulsa, beating Texas Christian, No. 25 Fresno State and host Tulsa.
Fresno State received an at-large bid. The Bulldogs were seeded No. 9 in the South regional and will play eighth-seeded Cal in the first round.
Only two WAC men's teams received NCAA Tournament bids. Tulsa and Texas-El Paso accepted bids to the National Invitational Tournament. On Wednesday Tulsa will play host to UC-Irvine and UTEP will host McNeese State.
WAC women's champion Texas Christian will play Penn State in the first round of the NCAA East Regional. TCU was the only WAC women's team to receive an NCAA bid.
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