UH wants to leave road trip behind
By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer
All things considered, the University of Hawai'i men's basketball team was glad just to make it back home yesterday after its one-week "trip to hell."
When the Rainbow Warriors left Honolulu last Monday, they were 8-0 and talking about breaking into the Top 25 national rankings. Yesterday, they returned to Honolulu road-weary, road-wary, 8-2 overall and 0-2 in the Western Athletic Conference.
"Obviously, not what we wanted," Hawai'i head coach Riley Wallace said. "Of course we would have liked to have won two, but we would have been satisfied with a split."
Instead, the 'Bows suffered two last-minute losses: 79-78 at Fresno State last Wednesday, and 58-55 at Nevada on Saturday. In both games, Hawai'i had seemingly comfortable leads in the second half. In both games, the 'Bows missed potential game-winning shots.
"Fresno was probably more of the one that got away — the one we should have won," Wallace said. "(Nevada) you can not say we should have won because very few teams will win here, if any. But you can say we could have won it."
In between the disappointing losses, the 'Bows endured a crazy bus ride that lasted more than 15 hours because a snowstorm closed the roads between Fresno, Calif., and Reno, Nev. In Reno, the snow kept falling and the 'Bows never seemed to warm up.
"It was cold weather 24 hours a day, we lost a whole day on that bus, and we lost both games," junior forward Julian Sensley said. "It was a trip to hell and I never want to deal with something like that again."
After the loss at Nevada, Wallace said he talked to his team about figuring out how to "grind it out" in close games because the 'Bows are likely to be in several more this season.
"You can talk about the travel, the cold and all that, but we have no excuses," Wallace said. "We just have to get better at executing our offense. Because so many of the teams in the league are so even, we're going to be in a lot of situations like this and we can't keep letting them slip away."
At 0-2, Hawai'i is now in an early-season "must win" situation this week. The 'Bows will host San Jose State on Saturday, and then SMU and Louisiana Tech next week.
"We can't give up anything at home now," Wallace said. "We need to get back in the race, and the only way to be there at the end is to win all your home games because we just found out how tough it is on the road."
In truth, the Fresno/Reno road trip has always been the toughest for Hawai'i teams. The 'Bows are 2-11 all-time at Fresno State, and 0-6 at Nevada.
"Everybody said Hawai'i can't win on the road and that these were the two hardest places to win and unfortunately we proved them right," sophomore guard "Little Matt" Gibson said. "Now we need to start proving some people wrong because I'm sure there are people out there doubting us."
Wallace said he also talked to his team about playing stronger after the 'Bows were out-rebounded by Nevada, 50-26.
"We just have to regroup and get back to playing the kind of basketball we're capable of," junior forward "Big Matt" Gipson said. "I know I'm personally going to try and pick it up. I've been playing soft lately and I need to start banging down low to help this team with rebounding and defense."
Despite the winless road trip, Wallace said he was pleased that the 'Bows were in a situation to win both games.
"That's probably the best we've ever played (in Reno)," he said. "And the Fresno game, we played good enough to win. It's like we did everything right up until the last few minutes. If we can figure that part out, we'll be all right."
Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-8101.
