UH faces a streaky Oregon State team
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
CORVALLIS, Ore. — If the ubiquitous Starbucks didn't inhabit this college town along the Willamette River it could be 1950. Buildings bring to mind "character" not "cookie cutter." Nothing is trendy, and everything revolves around Oregon State, where the University of Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine play their first-round WNIT basketball game tomorrow.
Hawai'i's road trip "Back to the Future" gives it an opportunity to swallow its disappointment with the present. The Rainbows (23-7) go into Gill Coliseum with the NCAA's latest slap at their program still stinging their cheeks. That concerns the Beavers (16-14) more than any Rainbow Wahine ever could.
"It's important that our players understand that they (the Rainbows) always play with something to prove," OSU assistant coach Stephanie (Osburn) Norman says. "Year after year it seems like unless they win the conference outright they don't get a fair shot at the NCAA Tournament."
If Norman sounds remarkably empathetic, it is because she has been there — with Hawai'i, as graduate assistant in 1991 and '92. Her final season, the Rainbows went 25-7 and got shot down for the first time by the committee. The platooning 'Bows took second at the NWIT in Amarillo, Texas — the precursor to this tournament.
Oregon State has no such NCAA history and comes in with a dramatically different frame of mind. The Beavers are ecstatic to be in the WNIT, which they won in 1980 and '82. They are 6-1 in the tournament, the only loss coming against Brigham Young a year ago.
They had no illusions about their NCAA chances Sunday. Their roller-coaster season included victories over New Mexico — in Albuquerque — and Pac-10 champion Arizona State, and a four-point loss to Texas Tech, a No. 4 seed in the NCAA's. There were also losses to lowly Portland and Utah. Six defeats came by six or fewer and it won three of four overtime games.
The Beavers, who haven't won this many games since 1996, also have victories against Washington, Oregon and Southern California — on a length-of-the-court last-second pass. All are in the WNIT, with the Pac-10 making up 25 percent of the upper bracket. The winner of tomorrow's game plays the winner of tonight's between Oregon and St. Mary's (Calif.). That will be played just south of here in Eugene.
If Hawai'i wants to get there, it will have to find a way to stop OSU guard Felicia Ragland. Last season's Pac-10 Player of the Year is a District 8 All-American a second straight year. The 5-foot-9 senior led the conference in scoring (20.1 points), steals (2.5) and 3-pointers (2.23 per game).
Portland State, coached by former Rainbow Wahine assistant George Wolfe, lost to both OSU and UH this season. Wolfe, a 1972 Kalani High School graduate (UH coach Vince Goo graduated from Kalani in 1965), believes Ragland's impact on tomorrow's game will decide the outcome.
"Ragland can get flustered," Wolfe says. "She just plays flat-out hard though. She can go on streaks. If Hawai'i can contain her, the other matchups may work in their favor.
"The worst thing that can happen is they relate this as a step down. If they come in still feeling the after-effects from Sunday, Oregon State is very capable of beating them."
