Guards make Classic intriguing
By Dayton Morinaga
Advertiser Staff Writer
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The 43rd annual Outrigger Hotels Rainbow Classic should be well-balanced and well-guarded.
There might not be any high-ranked teams, but there are several high-scoring guards in the four-day, eight-team tournament that starts tomorrow at the Stan Sheriff Center.
The eight teams in this year's field are host Hawai'i, Charlotte, Creighton, Houston, Nebraska, San Francisco, Valparaiso and Wyoming. None of the teams is ranked in the Top 25 polls, but none is considered a pushover.
Hawai'i head coach Riley Wallace said the field "actually turned out better than I thought it would be when we filled all the slots last year."
Nebraska is off to a 6-2 start; Wyoming is 8-2; Houston is 4-3, but is one of the top-scoring teams in the nation.
Hawai'i is 5-4 this season, but 14-1 in the last five Rainbow Classics.
Charlotte head coach Bobby Lutz said: "I think it's a great field. It may not have some marquee names, but in terms of teams that have a great chance of playing in the postseason, there are a number of teams that have an excellent chance."
Lutz can speak from experience. In the 1998 Rainbow Classic, he was in his first season as head coach at Charlotte. The 49ers beat Hawai'i in the semifinals, then lost to Princeton in the championship game.
That 1998-99 Charlotte team went on to win the Conference USA Tournament and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
"There's some tremendous carryover," Lutz said of the Rainbow Classic preparing teams for the postseason. "Not only on the physical side, but the mental side of playing back-to-back-to-back."
At the start of this season, Creighton was considered the No. 1 seed for the Rainbow Classic. The Bluejays were ranked No. 19 in November, but they are off to a 4-3 start and no longer in the rankings.
"We're not playing real well right now," Creighton head coach Dana Altman said. "But that's where a tournament like this can really help. We're hoping to get going a little bit by playing three good games in three days."
In any case, it should be a showcase for several guards. Among them:
"He's not just a one-dimensional guy," Lutz said. "He can really shoot the 3, even though he's not shooting a good percentage this year, and he has a good mid-range game. He's scoring, but he's still not shooting for a good percentage, so he can be even more effective."
The 6-3 senior is averaging 14.0 points per game, although he is still recovering from shoulder surgery in January.
"He was out six months with the surgery, so he's still bouncing back," Altman said. "He hasn't been shooting the ball very well, but once he starts stroking it like he's capable of, he'll be back on his game."
Matt Gibson, a 6-5 point guard, is averaging 11.1 points per game. He was named the Most Outstanding Player when the 'Bows won the 2004 Rainbow Classic.
"I haven't lost a Rainbow Classic game yet, and I don't plan on starting now," said Gibson, who was injured last season when Hawai'i placed third.
Matt Lojeski, a 6-6 shooting guard, leads the 'Bows in scoring with 16.4 points per game.
The 6-3 McKiver is averaging 22.7 points per game, and the 6-2 Lafayette is scoring 17.9 per game. They have both reached double-figure points in every game this season.
They have also combined to make 54 3-pointers in seven games this season. By comparison, the entire Creighton team has 38 3-pointers in seven games.
Surratt leads the way with 15.1 points per game, followed by Quezada's 13.5, and Kellogg's 13.4. All three transferred to USF from other Division I programs.
Ewing, a 6-2 sophomore, is averaging 22.2 points per game; Jones, a 6-foot junior, is contributing 17.7 points and 4.6 assists per game.
Although most of the teams in this year's field emphasize guard play, there is at least one intriguing big man in the Classic.
Nebraska's Aleks Maric is a 6-11, 270-pound center from Australia. He is averaging 19.4 points and 7.4 rebounds per game, and is ranked seventh in the country with a 67.9 field-goal percentage.
He entered his name in the NBA Draft last summer, but eventually decided to return to Nebraska.
"Very few teams have a low-post presence like that, so he is valuable," Nebraska head coach Doc Sadler said. "The problem is, he's hurt right now and we don't know if he can play."
Maric sat out Nebraska's last game with a hip injury.
In any case, the seven visiting teams are hoping to learn on and off the court this week.
"You're playing three games, and that's important," Valparaiso head coach Homer Drew said. "But we have guys who may never have a chance to ever come to Hawai'i again. So we're going snorkeling to see the fish, and do some other things to make this an educational trip as well as a basketball trip."
NOTES
The Hawai'i players and coaches visited some of the ailing youth patients at the Kapi'olani Medical Center yesterday. "There are a lot of people and their families that are having children concerns (health-wise)," Wallace said. "It was amazing ... we signed autographs, talked to the kids. We put smiles on a lot of kids' faces."
Reach Dayton Morinaga at dmorinaga@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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