FERD LEWIS
Start of something good for Akpan

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

Afterward, when the television cameras were lined up to interview him, center Nkeruwem "Tony" Akpan would acknowledge that, just maybe, University of Hawai'i basketball coach Riley Wallace knew what he was doing all along.

With choruses of "Tony! Tony! Tony!" from the stands of the Stan Sheriff Center still ringing in his ears, Akpan had to admit that it really wasn't such a bad idea to put him in the starting lineup after all.

But in the 45 nerve-jangling minutes preceding the tipoff of last night's 68-65 victory over Boise State, the 6-foot-8 Akpan was every inch the Rainbow Warriors' reluctant starter.

When Wallace named him the surprise starter in the locker room, Akpan paced nervously. He sweated and, at one point, he even tried to talk the coaches out of starting him over Milos Zivanovic.

Hard to believe, but the man who self-branded the excruciating-looking sun-shaped tattoo into his arm was squeamish about starting a basketball game.

With memories of his only other career start — a befuddled two-point effort last month at Southern Methodist — still fresh in his mind, "I told (assistant coach Jackson Wheeler) 'I don't think you should start me,' " Akpan said. "I had been working with the second team and didn't feel mentally ready to start.

"I wanted them to let me come off the bench. I said, 'that is for me.' I said, 'start Milos.' "

His earnest pleas fell on deaf ears and, in time, Akpan warmed to the task of filling in for the injured Haim Shimonovich. While Shimonovich sat on the bench, his badly sprained right ankle encased in a blue brace as big as a stove pipe, Akpan scored 15 points and contributed five assists to help the Rainbows break their two-game losing streak.

"I made my mind up earlier that we were going to start Tony, but I didn't say anything to (Wheeler) who put the matchups up on the board and he had Milos penciled in as guarding so and so," Wallace said. "He (Wheeler) said, 'Milos is guarding so and so, then I said, 'Milos won't be on him; Tony will be on him.' That's how he found out because I didn't want Tony to know because the last time I told him the night before and he didn't get any sleep at all."

This time, Akpan, the worried Warrior, would become Boise State's nightmare, teaming with Phil Martin to give UH the inside scoring punch to stave off what would have been the most deflating of losses.

By then, the butterflies had disappeared and Akpan, ready to head out into the night, was almost looking forward to starting tomorrow night's regular season home finale against Texas-El Paso, the reluctant starter no longer.