Rainbow Wahine in fight for second with seven others

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

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UH Wahine basketball WHAT: WAC games WHO: Hawai'i (12-11, 6-8) vs. Tulsa (13-12, 8-6) tomorrow and Rice (11-12, 8-6) Saturday WHERE: Stan Sheriff Center WHEN: 7 p.m. TV/RADIO: Both games broadcast live on KFVE/ tomorrow's game also live on 1420 AM TICKETS: $7 adults, $6 senior citizens, $4 students. PARKING: $3 SENIOR NIGHT: Saturday, honoring Hawai'i's Natasja Allen, Michelle Gabriel and Christen Roper. First 500 fans receive free team photo.

Louisiana Tech's impact in women's basketball has apparently been to make everyone else appear mediocre.

With two weeks left in the regular season, sixth-ranked Louisiana Tech, which has won a record-18 straight WAC games, and Nevada, which lost its first 10, are the only WAC teams that cannot finish second.

Going into this weekend's Rainbow Wahine games against Tulsa (tomorrow) and Rice (Saturday), eight teams are within three losses of one another. UH is 2 1/2 games out of second but just a game out of ninth.

No one but Tech, it seems, can win away from home. Hawai'i is 12-4 in Stan Sheriff Center with all the losses to ranked teams. It is 0-7 on the road.

"We've been in every single road game, every single one," UH coach Vince Goo said. "In years past we've won a lot of games in the last four minutes. This year our shots don't fall."

Tulsa opened the WAC season with five victories and has gone 3-6 since — 0-5 away from home.

"It is weird. Every team except Tech has lost numerous games, if not all, on the road," UH senior Christen Roper says. "Everybody at home is, basically, unbeatable. It's rather strange. It's rather frustrating, too."

The Rainbow Wahine have lost six of their past seven and are in danger of their worst conference finish since 1995. Yet a sweep of their final four games could give them a runner-up finish for the fourth consecutive year.

All that matters now, according to Goo, is finding a way to win again and avoiding a "final-four" regular-season finish. Teams that end up seventh through 10th play a first-round game at the WAC Tournament on March 11.

"You don't want to play the first day, you want to be top six," Goo says. "If you play the first day then you've got a long haul."

His ultimate hope is his team can pull it together in time to win the WAC Tournament and automatic NCAA Tournament berth that comes with it. The thought of "stealing" a second WAC berth (with 23-2 Louisiana Tech) despite a mediocre record is especially appealing to UH because 20-win seasons the past three years were not enough to get invited as an at-large selection.

Tomorrow's game is the sequel to a strange 45-42 Golden Hurricane victory a month ago.

At Tulsa, the the Hurricane transformed a close game into a 30-17 gap with a 17-4 surge to close the half. Illinois transfer Allison Curtin scored 12 of Tulsa's points in the run, had 19 at halftime and finished with 25.

Hawai'i shot 20 percent in the first half, then held Tulsa to 16 percent in the second, closing to 43-42 with 4:21 remaining before running out of rally.

"We did a few good things but had a lot of open shots that just didn't fall," Goo said. "We're going to have to have that happen again. And we'll have to shoot better in the first half. We got off to a real slow start."

Curtin is seventh in the country in scoring at more than 23 points a game. She is also 27th in steals and sixth in WAC rebounding, with eight double-doubles.

Rainbow Wahine seniors Michelle Gabriel, Natasja Allen and Roper will be honored after Saturday's final home game. Julia Washington, an often-injured junior who will graduate this semester, is also playing for the final time in Hawai'i.

The seniors have amassed an 81-36 record and gone to a record three consecutive postseason tournaments. All three have all-WAC Academic honors.

OVER AND BACK: Christen Roper will tie the WAC record of 267 career blocks with her next rejection. Brigham Young's Debbie Dimond set the record from 1991 to 1995. ... Roper is fifth in the NCAA with 3.22 blocks a game, just behind Tulsa's Alyssa Shriver (3.24). ... Volleyball All-American Kim Willoughby is now Hawai'i's leading scorer at 11-plus points a game. She also has the team's best shooting percentage (.473), is less than half a rebound behind Roper at 7.3 a game and is second in the WAC with an .810 free-throw percentage. ... Louisiana Tech remains between 17 and 20 in the assorted power rankings this week. Hawai'i, Fresno State, Tulsa and Rice are next, between 84 and 108. ... Tech's 18 consecutive conference victories is a WAC record. LaTech has won 21 in a row overall, second nationally to Connecticut's NCAA-record 59. ... Rice averaged 22 points in the first half of its games last week, and 44 in the second half.