By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Plaintively, they stared down at the floor or off into space, nobody in the University of Hawai'i basketball team's locker room uttering much in the way of words even well after Friday's NCAA Tournament first-round elimination.

Ironically, it was the depth of their disappointment that underlines the height of their achievement this season.

For until Predrag Savovic, Mike McIntyre, Mindaugas Burneika & Co., made getting to the second round of the NCAA Tournament their mission, just being in the field had seemed as much — or more — than any Rainbow team could hope for.

How many times had UH and its fans gotten excited over just the possibility of playing in the National Invitation Tournament?

NCAA appearances were more on the order of Haley's Comet sightings than realistic expectations.

Until this season, that is. Buoyed by last season's Western Athletic Conference Tournament championship run and NCAA appearance, this season's team dared to expect more. It dared to demand standards of itself like no UH team before it.

From September, it was NCAA or bust for these Rainbows. And, not just to get there, but do some damage once they arrived.

In raising the bar on expectations it went from the high jump to the pole vault. As Savovic said in Friday's post-game press conference: "I expected to win at least two games here. And, one more game and I would beat my brother (Slobodon, who plays for Ohio State) in the Elite Eight."

It never happened, of course, but it was typical of the mindset of the team. One that wasn't satisfied with the status quo or resting on its laurels of the previous season.

McIntyre, from early on, talked of making this a "legacy season" for the program. About leaving behind not just something for the fans to remember them by, but setting a standard for future teams.

There was talk of pulling off the first triple crown of basketball for UH: A Rainbow Classic title, WAC regular season crown and WAC Tournament championship all in the same season. And the NCAA bid that went with it all.

Once upon a not-so-distant time, any of the above would have made it a banner year. Painstakingly, these Rainbows checked off all those items and, in the process, won a school-record 27 games against 6 losses and returned the program to a place in the national polls.

They brought foot-stomping crowds and a sellout back to the home court, trappings of success not seen since the departure of Alika Smith and Anthony Carter.

And, on Senior Night, an appreciative legion of fans kept them at the arena until the early hours of the morning signing autographs.

In the end there would be frustration and disappointment over not doing better or going deeper into the NCAA bracket. But measured against where it started from and what it leaves behind, this team will be remembered more for what it accomplished than what it fell short of.