Net-cutting incident fuels PacWest clash
By Brandon Masuoka
Advertiser Staff Writer
The Chaminade men's basketball team will look to defend its home court — and its basketball nets — against 20th-ranked Brigham Young-Hawai'i tomorrow night at McCabe Gym.
In March of last season, BYUH clinched the Pacific West Conference championship with an 86-82 victory over Chaminade at McCabe Gym.
To the horror of some Chaminade players, BYUH celebrated by cutting down Chaminade's basketball nets. The Seasiders' celebration also delayed the start of Chaminade's Senior Night.
"We all remember what they did to us on our home court last year," Chaminade senior forward Mike Donegan said. "We had to wait for them to cut down the nets. We were trying to give our seniors their Senior Night."
Tomorrow's PacWest game features two of the top teams in the conference. Tipoff is at 7:30 p.m. BYUH (11-2 overall, 5-1 PacWest) leads the six-team PacWest, while Chaminade (9-9, 4-2) is in third place.
This week, BYUH broke into the Division II National Association of Basketball Coaches Top 25. It is the first time in school history that BYUH has been ranked in Division II.
The Seasiders are led by all-conference center Scott Salisbury and the 2002 PacWest Player of the Year Alexus Foyle, the top scorer in the nation at 26.9 points per game.
Yesterday, Foyle said Chaminade will likely be fired up to play BYUH because of last year's net-cutting incident.
"I was the first one to cut the net down," said Foyle, who added he never intended to insult Chaminade by doing so. "Because of that, they're going to be ready to play us. They'll probably play one of their best games against us."
At practice this week, Chaminade coach Aaron Griess downplayed last year's incident by saying, "there's no sour grapes at all."
"(BYUH) felt like that was the thing to do," Griess said. "That's fine. I think for some of our guys, I think that's motivation. It's not motivation for me. We're just trying to go out there and play as best as we can and hopefully win."
To accomplish that, the Silverswords will have to contain Foyle and Salisbury. The two combine to score 42.4 points per game, nearly half of BYUH's 88.1 point-per-game total. Salisbury also leads the conference in rebounding at 10.5 per game.
"Our team really thinks that Salisbury and Foyle make that team," said Chaminade senior forward Leon Ballard, who leads the Silverswords with 18.1 points per game. "We're going to have to neutralize them and see what we can do."
Foyle will draw the most attention from Chaminade. He is coming off a 40-point game against UH-Hilo on Jan. 31.
"First of all, (Foyle) is a great athlete," Donegan said. "He can jump and run. He's a good basketball player. I have no idea how we're going to defend him. He gets a lot of his points off offensive rebounds. We have to make sure we always have a body on him."
Griess said he'll try to mix defenses against Foyle and perhaps double team him, something Chaminade did not do in three of its losses to BYUH last season.
Griess said he's also worried about BYUH's supporting cast of freshman guard Shawn Opunui (8.5 ppg, 5.92 apg), sophomore guard Spencer Lynn (36 percent from 3-point range), senior guard Jeremy Frampton (53 percent from 3-point range) and 6-foot-11 senior center Pablo Broering (6.5 ppg, 4.4 rpg).
"They're a good basketball team with players all over the floor," Griess said. "If we focus just on stopping just one guy, then those other guys are going to hurt us. We want to play good team defense this week."
• Three teams ranked: The BYU-Hawai'i men's basketball team (11-2) moved up one spot to No. 3 in the NCAA II West Regional rankings.
Hawai'i-Hilo (13-6) is ranked seventh and Hawai'i Pacific (13-6) is ranked ninth. Cal State-San Bernardino (13-4) leads the poll.
Men's basketball results
Last week
Hawai'i Pacific 87, Chaminade 78
Montana State-Billings 109, W. New Mexico 91
Brigham Young-Hawai'i 101, Hawai'i-Hilo 95
Montana State-Billings 146, W. New Mexico 73
Tuesday's result
Hawai'i-Hilo 83, Hawai'i Pacific 67
This week's games
Today
Great Falls at Montana State-Billings
Tomorrow
Brigham Young-Hawai'i at Chaminade at McCabe Gym, 7:30 p.m.
• HPU runner rolls in Vegas: Hawai'i Pacific's Sayuri Kusutani finished second in the Las Vegas Marathon Sunday.
Kusutani, of Matsusaka, Japan, ran the 26.2-mile course in 3 hours, 4 minutes and 1 second. Linda Huyck of Olympia, Wash., won the race in 2:57:48. Kusutani, who finished her sophomore season, has two years of eligibility remaining.
• HPU doubleheader rescheduled: Hawai'i Pacific will play two seven-inning baseball games against Sonoma State tonight starting at 6 at Hans L'Orange Park in Waipahu. The games were originally scheduled to start at 4 p.m. but were delayed to accommodate Sonoma State's traveling plans.
