By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer
DAYTON, Ohio - For the last two days, the curious college basketball world has been getting the Cliff’s Notes version of the University of Hawai'i men’s basketball team.
According to coach Riley Wallace, there are a lot of last-minute media crammers trying to learn the Rainbows’ fairy-tale story as they prepare for Friday’s first-round NCAA Tournament game against Syracuse. The Rainbows, appearing in the tournament for just the third time, are a No. 12 seed in the Midwest Regional, and will play the No. 5 Orangemen (around 5 p.m. HST) at the University of Dayton Arena.
For the second consecutive day, the Rainbows practiced at Wright State University, though it was more like a two-hour reprieve from the media for Wallace.
"It was a headache today because my phone’s ringing off the hook and it’s time to start focusing on the game," he said. "I’m trying to do the best I can because it helps promote the team and the school, but I’m going to have to cut it off starting tomorrow."
To be sure, Wallace spent virtually the whole day being interviewed. He chatted with ESPN Radio, USA Today, the New York Post, and several other radio and print media.
Over and over, he repeated the story of the Rainbows’ late-season 7-1 run that coincided with the eligibility of freshman center Haim Shimonovich and emergence of freshman guard Carl English.
He also promoted his "star" players - Predrag Savovic, Troy Ostler and Nerijus Puida - who remain relative unknowns outside the Western Athletic Conference, and reeled off the United Nations roll call of a roster.
"People outside Hawai'i didn’t really know us, and probably had no reason to know us, until now," Wallace said. "And now they hear about how we have all these guys from all over the world and we got them playing great basketball together and they want to know about it."
Ostler, the senior center and co-captain, has been unofficially designated as the team’s spokesman this week, and he went through almost as many interviews as Wallace yesterday.
"I don’t look at it as a distraction," Ostler said. "It’s more of a privilege."
The team’s second-leading scorer (15.3 points per game) said he has completed more interviews in the last few weeks than he did his entire two seasons at Salt Lake Community College in Utah, where he played before transferring to UH.
"Playing basketball in junior college, you never get any press," Ostler said. "So this is fun for me. It’s part of the atmosphere of being in the tournament."
Another popular Rainbow is English, who went from seldom-used reserve to WAC Tournament Most Valuable Player in a span of one month. Prior to last night’s practice, English was the only Rainbow a local television station requested for an interview.
"I’m not going to let it get to my head," said English, who will still back up starter Mike McIntyre at point guard on Friday. "I’m just here to win, and if that’s part of it, then it comes with the territory, I guess. You guys (the media) gotta do your job, we gotta do ours."
English’s road roommate, Phil Martin, said the phone in their room has been ringing a lot in the past few days, but hardly ever for him.
"Yeah, they always ask for Carl," he said. "But that’s cool. He got his chance to shine, and now everybody wants to talk to him about it."
The talk is even spreading beyond America. English, who is from Newfoundland, said the story of his heroics appeared in a Canadian newspaper.
Other Rainbows are being spoken of in foreign tongues. Puida and Mindaugas Burneika, who are from Lithuania, were interviewed via e-mail by the Lithuanian media yesterday.
"My mom said they already had a story in the Lithuanian paper about us with the stats and everything," Puida said. "And some of the kids from my village went out and played basketball and said they were the Rainbows."
Shimonovich said he heard about "March Madness" in his home country of Israel, but didn’t realize its magnitude until this week. He said he was amazed to see information about the Rainbows in newspapers outside Hawai'i.
"I figured it was big, but I didn’t know it was so huge," he said. "Every different newspaper I see, it’s all about college basketball."
Sure enough, the Rainbows are always there, the No. 12 seed in the Midwest Regional.
"Sometimes I look at it over and over," Shimonovich said. "It is so hard to believe we are here, you have to see it to believe it."
Now, the rest of the college basketball world can find out.
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