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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, November 15, 2003

Rainbow Classic beefs up in 2004

By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer

 •  Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic

2003 field

American
Bowling Green
East Tennessee State
Fairfield
Hawai'i
IUPUI
Lamar
Pepperdine

2004 field

Alabama-Birmingham
Clemson
Georgetown
Hawai'i
Indiana State
Long Beach State
Louisiana State
Southern California
The marquee names missing from this year's Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic are expected to return next year.

Georgetown, Clemson, Louisiana State and Southern California — programs from four of basketball's so-called power conferences — have committed to play in the 2004 Rainbow Classic at the Stan Sheriff Center.

"This year is a down year because it's the end of the cycle," UH head coach Riley Wallace said. "But you'll start to see the teams come back next year. We feel like we got four strong ones."

Per NCAA rules, teams are allowed to participate in exempted tournaments no more than twice in a four-year span. Exempted tournaments, such as the Rainbow Classic, allow teams to count the entire tournament as only one game against its 28-game schedule limit.

This year's classic does not feature any of the power conferences because many of those schools had already played in two exempted tournaments in the past four years.

Among next year's teams, Clemson is from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), Georgetown is from the Big East, LSU is from the Southeastern Conference (SEC), and USC is from the Pacific-10.

Other teams joining Hawai'i in the 2004 field are Alabama-Birmingham, Indiana State and Long Beach State.

"A lot of teams still want to come out here," said UH associate coach Bob Nash, who is in charge of scheduling. "It's a matter of figuring out whether they can or not."

First in line: The UH coaches received the official national letter of intent from touted recruit Matt Gipson yesterday.

Ray Gipson, Matt's father, credited UH associate coach Jackson Wheeler for being the first to start recruiting Matt after an unexpected departure from Oklahoma.

Gipson, one of the nation's top prep recruits out of Texas two years ago, transferred from Oklahoma to North Idaho (junior) college prior to this season.

"I heard about him through a friend and I knew he was a good player so I got on him right away," Wheeler said.

In recent months, several of the NCAA Division I programs that recruited Gipson out of high school were trying to recruit him again out of North Idaho.

"Hawai'i was the first, and they were real genuine with Matt and I think that paid off," Ray Gipson said.

Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8101.