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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, April 4, 2003

Restless offseason for UH hoops

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Considering they haven't even played a game, this has been a tough week for the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team.

First, its leading scorer, Carl English, announces he's off to pursue NBA dreams and then, Nkeruwem "Tony" Akpan, the team's sophomore backup center and crowd favorite shows up in a helmet and drills at spring football practice.

And, no, this hasn't officially been declared "April Fool's Week" at UH.

"If Haim (Shimonovich) is out there (at practice tomorrow), I'm outta here," said assistant coach Jackson Wheeler, only half in jest.

Luckily for the basketball team, the football team doesn't use a tight end in the run-and-shoot offense or there might be something to worry about.

After this, basketball coach Riley Wallace may never leave town for another NCAA Final Four again.

The Rainbow Warriors might have seen the last of English, but they should plan on keeping the light on for Akpan. For while his 6-foot-8, 235-pound presence at defensive end would seem to offer some interesting down-the-road possibilities fast-breaking after quarterbacks and slam-dunking running backs, don't look for this towering new No. 90 in action at Aloha Stadium anytime soon.

As much an improving work-in-progress as Akpan has been in basketball, a sport he only took up as a teenager in his native Nigeria, the learning curve is going to be much steeper in football, which, until yesterday, he had only glimpsed from the stands and TV.

There are reasons very few at UH have tried to double up on hoops and football, and especially tough for someone who has grown up with neither sport.

It is one thing for Mat McBriar to come in from Australia and begin punting the ball through the ozone. It is another to step right in on the defensive line and make a contribution trapping the traps and stuffing the draw.

Even Colin Scotts, who came from Down Under in the early 1980s and went on to have a brief NFL career, took three years (one of them a redshirt season) before he began making a contribution. Some other foreign candidates never made it at all.

Some think Akpan, with his height and wingspan, could have a more immediate impact on special teams blocking kicks.

But even that would be to suppose that football takes on his scholarship against its total, as it would be required to do, and the basketball team was willing to share Akpan from summer through Christmas and risk injury.

The reason Akpan has improved by leaps and bounds is the work and time he invested into developing his skills in the off-season. Throw football into the mix and that can't help.

Meanwhile, has anybody in the basketball office checked on what Phil Martin is up to lately?