Hilo's loss against Manoa counts
By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer
The University of Hawai'i at Hilo men's basketball team must count Monday's 73-60 exhibition loss to UH-Manoa on its win-loss record, and change its remaining schedule after the program violated an NCAA rule on exhibition games, UH-Hilo's athletic director said yesterday.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertiser
By playing in Monday's so-called exhibition game, UH-Hilo violated a new NCAA Division II rule that prohibits exhibition games after Nov. 22.
The UH-Manoa vs. UH-Hilo game Monday was an exhibition for the Rainbows, but not for the Vulcans.
The exhibition game was originally scheduled for Nov. 11, but was pushed back to Monday at the request of UH-Manoa head coach Riley Wallace, who wanted a game between Nov. 24 and Dec. 14 to get his team into game shape.
"There's no excuse for not knowing the rules," said UH-Hilo Athletic Director Kathleen McNally, who said the school turned itself in. "We can't point fingers at anyone but ourselves."
UH-Hilo must count Monday's exhibition as a regular-season game. The school also must change its Dec. 16 regular-season game against MidAmerica Nazarene (Kan.) to a "scrimmage" so it won't violate the 27-game maximum set by the NCAA. UH-Manoa, which competes in Division I, will not face any penalties since the exhibition game rule only applies to Division II schools.
The loss provides another obstacle for the Vulcans who at 5-3 are off to their best start under fourth-year head coach Jeff Law. The Vulcans will also likely be hurt in the standings by the resulting schedule change against NAIA-school MidAmerica Nazarene. The Vulcans are favored in the game, but the outcome will not count in the standings since it's a scrimmage.
Fans will not be charged admission to the scrimmage. The Vulcans average about 1,000 fans, mostly season ticket holders. UH-Hilo sports information director Kelly Leong said the department would lose at least $1,000 by not charging admission.
McNally said UH-Hilo followed Division I rules, which usually are more stringent than Division II, on the exhibition game issue. She said the school didn't know about the change in the Division II rules on exhibition games that was made last year.
"When we changed games with Manoa we had checked on it, but we didn't check deep enough," said McNally, who added UH-Hilo officials verified the error on the day of the Manoa game.
"We really are fully responsible for making our mistakes, but thank heaven we were able to catch it at this point and be able to rectify it," McNally said.
UH-Hilo coach Law said he believed that games might have been forfeited if the error was allowed to linger until the end of the season. Law said he was recently notified of the error by Brigham Young-Hawai'i's head basketball coach, Ken Wagner.
Law said the loss against UH-Manoa would be a "wash" in the power ratings system and wouldn't hurt UH-Hilo when teams are ranked or picked for postseason.
Law, who was an assistant for Wallace at UH for eight seasons before accepting the UH-Hilo job in 1998, said this situation wouldn't jeopardize his relationship with UH-Manoa and added he would play UH-Manoa again, but earlier in the season.
"There's no hard feelings," said Law, in his fourth year as UHH coach.
Wallace yesterday said he didn't know about UH-Hilo's situation until Monday before the game. Wallace said he could have scheduled another team to play UH, but he wanted to help out Law and the Vulcan program.
"I would prefer to play him, because it helps him, and he likes to do it," said Wallace, who added UH-Hilo is reimbursed $5,000 to travel to Honolulu and play UH-Manoa.
