There will undoubtedly be speeches and hoopla, tears and testimonials, accompanying Riley Wallace's final regular-season home game as University of Hawai'i basketball coach Saturday at the Stan Sheriff Center

That will be as it should for a man who has given UH a quarter-century of service — the last 20 seasons as the team's head coach.

But the most fitting send-off would be a return to the postseason.

For when it comes to his legacy, Wallace should be remembered as the man who directed the Rainbow Warriors back to the postseason, finally separating UH from the pall of NCAA sanctions and ending the most tumultuous era in the athletic program's history. A period, as coincidence would have it, that marks something of an anniversary in May — 30 years since the NCAA slapped the school with a two-year probation that turned into more than a decade of penance.

More than his overall count of wins and losses — and Wallace stands at 332-264 at UH (347-291 overall Division I) — he is responsible for making the postseason both a possibility and an expectation again at UH.

Nine times in the last 18 years the 'Bows have earned a place in the postseason, either National Invitation Tournament or NCAA. These days we take for granted that UH will knock on the door of one or the other. It is a disappointment when it doesn't. And Wallace has given us that.

At 16-12, with tomorrow's game against Idaho and Saturday's meeting with Boise State plus the Western Athletic Conference Tournament, the 'Bows are within striking distance again.

Time was, however, when the postseason had become but a cob-webbed memory. When Wallace was hired by Stan Sheriff in 1987, the 'Bows hadn't been to one since 1973-74, which ended a period of three times in six years.

Then came the fallout from the 68 violations, which so leveled the program that it was anybody's guess when the return would come. Bruce O'Neil, Larry Little and Frank Arnold, pieces of whose tenures as head coaches covered 12 years, had been unable to get UH beyond the regular season. Not until Wallace's second season, 1988-89, did the breakthrough finally come.

When nearly 6,000 fans marked the occasion by rocking Blaisdell Center for an NIT game against California, sportscaster Jim Leahey observed, "Maybe the reason fans were so loud was more than a decade of pent-up emotions."

There will be lei and hugs and cheers aplenty when Wallace makes his final regular season home appearances this week. But the best, most appropriate, parting gift they could give him will have to come from the players in the form of victories. Only they can return to the postseason the man who showed UH the way back.

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