By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

For what seems like the umpteenth time now, the Fresno State and University of Hawai'i basketball teams meet tonight with first place in the Western Athletic Conference at stake.

But while the script is familiar and the import little changed over the sometimes-turbulent years, it is a curious cast of visitors who show up to perpetuate this almost annual renewal of hostilities at the Stan Sheriff Center.

While the schedule tells us it is the Bulldogs, one look at this Fresno State team and the eyes are bound to say something else.

While the name on the uniforms indicate "Fresno State," the senses suggest otherwise.

I mean, no Jerry Tarkanian? No Melvin Ely, the seemingly eternal Bulldog go-to guy? And, not a player with a felony rap sheet anywhere on the roster?

Clearly, this is going to take some getting used to.

Nothing against the Bulldogs' new coach, Ray Lopes, but if Tarkanian is nowhere to be found, can it really be the team Hawai'i fans love to hate?

Lopes, a 39-year-old former Oklahoma assistant, is young, patient, willing to clean house and untainted by a whiff of scandal. He is, in so many ways, everything the 71-year-old Tarkanian wasn't.

Lopes has done a remarkable job in a short time getting the Bulldogs into the WAC lead (11-2, 4-0 WAC) with a revamped roster and under a cloud of sanctions in which he had no part. But, without the cueball-ish Tarkanian, the coach with a penchant for towel-gnawing, where is the focal point for this rivalry?

Part — a very large part — of this rivalry was the good vs. evil overtones it often took on. And who better than Tark the Shark, a man who seemed up to his forlorn eyes in crisis of one kind or another, to give it that edge?

Nobody but Tark would have made a former prison guard part of his team's traveling party to help babysit some of his miscreants. Or needed the services of one.

That Tarkanian strolled into retirement after last season, a step ahead of the NCAA posse stringing up the Bulldogs on sanctions, makes the departure all the more regretful.

Gone, too, apparently are the type of players that Tark tolerated in his self-styled Father Flanagan home for wayward hoopsters. Guys who jumped up on the sideline tables and taunted the "Felony State University" sign-wavers after a win or who flipped off the stands after a loss.

Not once this season has there been so much as a samurai sword incident.

All in all, if it wasn't for the red and blue uniforms, you'd swear this was some team other than the Bulldogs who take the floor tonight.