By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

DALLAS — "Noooo!" boomed the voice from the sideline, fairly echoing in the near-empty Moody Coliseum where the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team was going through a workout in preparation for tomorrow's NCAA Tournament opener.

"The pass has to be crisper," coach Riley Wallace demanded. "It has to get there a helluva lot quicker than that."

These days the fiery Wallace of old comes through only in sporadic bursts. The quick temper that causes a vein in his neck to bulge like the Alaskan Pipeline is but a once-in-a-while occurrence. Time was when you could almost set an egg timer between eruptions.

"He's mellowed," said Cal Smith, who played for Wallace at Centenary College in the early 1970s, coached with him at UH and observed him this week in practice.

"Naw, he's a cream puff now," said Stan Welker with a look of mock disgust. Welker is a Dallas area businessman who also played for Wallace at Centenary.

Even in this, the crucible of the postseason when the worth of a season can hinge in the balance, there was hardly the slightest departure from the kinder, gentler Wallace we've come to recognize at the Stan Sheriff Center. Before UH went behind closed doors for its only private workout yesterday there was little sign of what Wallace used to call "tightening down."

If the fire breathing was going to come back, it should have by now. After all, restraint is one thing when you are playing Norfolk State in November. It is quite another when you are getting ready for No. 22 Xavier in the NCAA Tournament.

But Wallace, though he remains very much hands on and firmly in control at age 61, now uses verbal pyrotechnics sparingly and it has made him a better coach and his players a better team.

"Coach is staying pretty mellow — for him," said Mike Mcintyre, who has observed this curious phenomenon from the vantage point of a fourth-year senior. "I think Coach trusts us more. He's seen that we're more mature than some of his teams and he doesn't have to yell as much to communicate. He's kind of been that way since the end of last season and he hasn't changed it lately."

Indeed, there is a mutual understanding and a high level of coach-player respect at work here — reinforced by the school-record 27-5 record and No. 25 ranking they take into the Xavier game.

The Rainbows know from where their coach comes and he acknowledges the maturity in how they go about their work. Concepts are quickly grasped and frustration levels less often taxed. And, in something you rarely saw in the past, he is also open to suggestion. "These guys, they have some good ideas, too," Wallace says. "And, we listen."

So, these days, "I pick my spots when I'm going to get after them rather than yell all the time," Wallace admits. "These guys have proven they know how to work and they pick things up quickly. You don't have to keep after them all the time."

That is just part of the equation. Wallace also has let his assistants assume larger roles, especially Bob Nash and Scott Rigot, who do much of the on-the-floor teaching.

"I was a dictator early on, I didn't want anybody taking anything away," Wallace acknowledges. "It was all me and they just did what I told them to do."

These days Wallace is still telling his coaches and players what to do — just not as loud or as often.