Posted at 5:24 p.m., Saturday, March 4, 2006
Grice suspended, UH women lose
Advertiser Staff
Brittany Grice, the starting center for the University of Hawai'i women's basketball team, has been suspended indefinitely by UH coach Jim Bolla for a violation of team rules and conduct detrimental to the team.The announcement was made in Bolla's pregame interview on KKEA Radio 1420 before today's final regular-season Western Athletic Conference game at No. 18 Louisiana Tech.
Louisiana Tech routed Hawai'i, 91-52, to win its fifth consecutive WAC regular-season title. Despite the loss, Hawai'i (18-9, 9-7) secured the No. 3 seed in the WAC Tournament in Reno, Nev. The tournament starts Tuesday and concludes Saturday. Hawai'i will play No. 6 seed Boise State (14-14, 6-10) on Wednesday at a time to be determined.
Louisiana Tech (23-4, 15-1) earned the top seed at the WAC Tournament.
Bolla did not disclose what Grice, a junior, did to warrant the suspension in the interview with radio announcer Kevin Hashiro.
"We're just dealing with it," Bolla said. "It's a situation where we needed to address some issues, and we thought in the best interests of both the team and Brittany that we do this at this point.
"We'll be further evaluating as we go day by day with it," he continued. "I think the team has responded postively to it as much as they can. It's unfortunate, but we're going to show up and play."
Grice leads the team in rebounding, averaging 7.7 per game, and blocks at 2.56 per game. She was third in scoring at 11.8 points per game.
Tanya Smith, a sophomore forward, replaced Grice in the starting lineup.
