Posted on: Sunday, January 4, 2004

'Dogs pull off perfect getaway

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

"Even if we had all of our players, a win here, in Hawai'i, would be a real steal," Fresno State men's basketball coach Ray Lopes had said.

So, with two of the Bulldogs' top scorers back in Fresno serving out suspensions, what did that make last night's 69-58 upset of the University of Hawai'i?

Grand theft?

"Yeah, you could call it that because this is one of the toughest places to come and win a game even when you have everybody on your team," Lopes said.

Though you would have never known how tough it was supposed to be by watching the Bulldogs grab the Western Athletic Conference opener, manhandling the Rainbow Warriors on the boards, 38-16 overall and 25-3 on the offensive side, in the process. Bulldog center Mustafa "Moose" Al-Sayyad, who had 15 rebounds, almost out-rebounded Hawai'i by himself.

The seeming ease with which the Bulldogs meted out what UH coach Riley Wallace tersely termed, "a good ole WAC butt-kickin'," belied the 17-1 home edge the Rainbows had held in conference games over the previous two years and the confidence with which they had entered this one as an eight-point favorite.

It also brought to a stunning halt a six-game winning streak that had seen the Rainbows roar to an 8-2 non-conference start.

Mostly, though it made for a red-faced pratfall to start the WAC season. In the nation's most geographically-dispersed conference, where the rule of thumb for would-be title contenders is that you try to sweep at home and split on the road, these Rainbows already find themselves standing in a hole.

One that could suddenly become neck-deep if they don't turn it around in time for conference preseason favorite Nevada tomorrow night.

"Nevada would beat this team by 20 points, if they played like this," Wallace snapped.

If you are the Rainbows, you don't want to head out on the longest conference road trip of the season — San Jose State, Southern Methodist and Louisiana Tech — in an 0-2 hole.

And there seemed a slight chance of that happening even with an injured Julian Sensley in the lineup because the Bulldogs arrived here at 4-5 and without forwards Reynaldo Major and Jonathan Woods, who, between them, had contributed an average of 27 points a game.

So thin had the FSU roster become that in pre-game warmups the Fresno radio and TV broadcasters struggled to identify a couple of the players who were brought along to fill out the bench.

But it hardly mattered the way Fresno played felony defense, holding UH to 28 percent shooting in the second half and to but one field goal in the final 7 minutes, 15 seconds, while mugging the Rainbows on the boards.

Maybe what Fresno State perpetrated wasn't a "steal" as much as old fashioned assault and battery.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.