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[Dawg04]

Hawaii's melting pot stiring up success

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By Ed Graney
Special to ESPN.com


Bob Nash has been an assistant basketball coach at Hawaii for 22 years. One of his tasks, scouring the country for recruits interested in playing amid all that surf and sand.

Yes, it's a task. And it's not that easy.

No, really.

WAC Projections
Here are ESPN.com's WAC projections:

1. Tulsa
2. Hawaii
3. Nevada
4. Louisiana Tech
5. Fresno State
6. SMU
7. Rice
8. San Jose State
9. Boise State
10. UTEP
All-WAC Team
G: Carl English
Hawaii, Senior
G: Dante Swanson
Tulsa, Senior
G: Quinton Ross
SMU, Senior
F: Kevin Johnson
Tulsa, Senior
F: Antonio Meeking
LaTech, Senior
Most Valuable Player
Carl English, Hawaii
Newcomer of the Year
Antonio Lawrence, S.J. State
Freshman of the Year
Bryan Hopkins, SMU



"It has been somewhat difficult to go and get high school players from the East Coast or Midwest and convince them to come this far from home to play," says Nash. "But that's not the case with foreign players. They want to come to the United States, whether that means New York or Los Angeles or Hawaii. Distance is not a factor. They just want a chance at a quality education and an opportunity to play basketball.

"Obviously, they have adapted pretty well to Hawaii."

Obviously, it is a major reason the Warriors are so tough.

There are several reasons why Hawaii is again expected to contend for the Western Athletic Conference title, none more important than nine foreigners on its roster. It's a group that includes names from Nigeria and Slovenia and Guam and Israel and Yugoslavia and Lithuania. In the last four years, Hawaii has recruited 13 non-American players.

"(Foreign players) are almost always academically sound and very disciplined kids," says head coach Riley Wallace. "And they have the fundamentals on the court that a lot of (American) players lack."

There is also this: The big Island is your basic melting pot, an assortment of diverse communities. A foreign player signs with Hawaii and it's a better-than-even bet he will speaking his native tongue before buying a beach chair.

Talk about finding a recruiting niche.

Toughness comes in many forms and Hawaii experienced the ultimate this past off-season, watching 16-year coach Wallace undergo brain surgery in early September. Wallace was rushed to a Las Vegas hospital and operated on for two subdural hematomas. He spent eight days in the hospital and at first returned to work on a part-time basis.

There is no better evidence of Hawaii's emergence as a legitimate program than beating Tulsa on its home court the last two WAC tournament finals. Used to be, road games and the Warriors mixed like Don Ho and Black Sabbath. But new travel arrangements -- Hawaii now leaves an extra day earlier for games and tries to reach each destination in the daylight hours -- has been far less taxing on players' bodies.

"It's not like it used to be, when Hawaii would come off the Island and lose," says SMU coach Mike Dement. "They win in tough places now. They win everywhere."

Says former Fresno State coach Jerry Tarkanian: "Hawaii became so tough to beat the last few years. Their kids are all smart. You walk in there and it's like you have been ambushed."

Much of it has to do with the experience of those foreign transfers, of young men who often arrive in Hawaii having played for top club teams abroad, who can dribble and shoot and pass and have always competed against bigger, stronger and older opponents.

Who are pretty tough mentally.


Phil Martin, who hails from Ontario, is one of nine international players on Hawaii's roster.


"The thing we have been able to do is help them adapt to the American style," said Nash. "We've taught them to be more aggressive, especially on the defensive end. But not much rattles them. They come here having already played in a lot of big games."

Says Carl English, the a 6-foot-5 junior wing from Patrick's Cove, Newfoundland and a certain all-conference pick this season: "One of the toughest things to learn is playing at such a high level every night out. There aren't many easy games in college. But, ultimately, it's still basketball. It's about attention to detail and fundamentals, whether you're playing here or abroad."

Playing in the WAC won't be easy for anyone this season. The league is better top to bottom than last year, when Tulsa and Hawaii tied for the regular-season title and Louisiana Tech finished a game back.

Four teams -- Louisiana Tech, Nevada, Fresno State and SMU -- could all fight for the third spot behind the Golden Hurricane and Warriors. It's that close.

It is a league that does not return one player from the first-team all-conference selections (gone are talents like Melvin Ely of Fresno State and Predrag Savovic of Hawaii and Greg Harrington of Tulsa), but four of the five second-teamers are back.

An interesting storyline comes from Fresno, where former Oklahoma assistant Ray Lopes replaces the retired Jerry Tarkanian. Lopes won't have Ely in the post of Chris Jefferies on the wing, but expectations of the team's faithful won't change.

"The key for us is how well we defend and rebound," said Lopes. "Our talent level is good. But we need to give a great effort night-in and night-out."

There is good reason to keep an eye on Louisiana Tech, a rising program filled with athletic players. It's arguably the WAC's deepest team and one that could again flirt with an NCAA bid this season.

"We have good enough players returning that we will compete with just about anybody on our schedule," says Bulldogs coach Keith Richard, whose team will play, among others, Florida, Mississippi State and Texas.

Three of the league's weakest teams on paper -- San Jose State, Texas-El Paso and Boise State -- have filled coaching jobs in different ways. Phil Johnson returns to San Jose (where he was head coach 1998-99) after two seasons with the Chicago Bulls; Billy Gillispie is the Illinois assistant who just took over at UTEP after Jason Rabedeaux resigned less than three weeks before the first game; and former Oregon assistant Greg Graham is the new boss at Boise State.

Each is facing a long climb.

"The thing I want to recruit here is basketball junkies, kids who want to play, kids who like to play," says Graham. "If you have to push kids all the time to be in the gym and work on their own, then they can't reach their potential. We needs guys who want to get better. That will take us to a whole new level."

A level Tulsa and Hawaii have already reached.

And likely will again this season.

[ARKDAWG02]

They same some nice things about us but pick us 4th? I guess that might say something about the strength of the WAC this year.