Rainbow Warriors in CIT. Yay or nay?
My first impulse was that I didn’t want to see the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team play again this season after the way it didn’t show up for its Big West tournament game against UC Irvine.
But after some more thought, I’m OK that the Rainbow Warriors are in the College Insiders.com Tournament, under one condition: financially strapped UH makes a profit by doing so. That means a big crowd when it hosts Air Force on Wednesday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.
In 2011, UH hosted two CIT games, drew 10,265 fans and cleared $72,000 after expenses.
I have to believe new athletic director Ben Jay crunched the numbers and fully expects to make a profit this time around, too.
This season’s team has lost its last three games and five of its last seven. The 2010-11 team won five of its last seven before beating Portland and losing to San Francisco in the CIT.
Hawaii is 17-14 this year and finished 19-13 in 2011.
Bring it on!
DR: Let’s hope playing at home makes a difference…cause we play ugly on the road!
Dave , that is Ben Jay’s strength, crunching the numbers, encouraging local corporations to buy blocks of tickets too. He would not have accepted , if he thought UH could not at least break even. He is smart guy with the financial end . The CIT hosting was doable. All I have to say is thanks to CIT and hope 4000+ will show up, or even more, on Wed, , and more importantly , tickets sold , way north or 4000!
Glad the team has a chance to redeem themselves for poor showing in first round of BWC tourney!
This is a tournament of losers and the only winner is good old Riley Wallace who collects a $35,000 fee from each team that participates in the tournament. Please don’t give me headache by saying UH deserve to be in this tournament….they were just consistently pathetic in one of the weakest, if not, the weakest basketball conference in Division 1. Nothing more and nothing less.
I agree that the only way we do it is if UH can make a profit and I’m sure Riley pulled some strings to get a home game for the Rainbow Warriors.
Beggars can’t be choosers. They probably won’t be invited again if they turn down the invite, and always good to have some kind of post season for the team. It’s like the equivalent of the Hawaii Bowl where Hawaii will get an invite with a winning record as long as Riley Wallace is in charge of that tournament no matter how lousy UH’s RPI ends up.
“Paying to Play” in this game is an embarrassment to the coach, the team, the University and the State of Hawaii.
I’m for it if they play with brown paper bags over their heads.
This is a relatively young team. Any opportunity to get real game time is a gain for their experience. Play On!
How do you figure this team is relatively young? 3 seniors, 4 juniors, 2 freshmen as far as who got serious playing time. The rest dont count so basically you’re starting the excuses for next years horrors. And Pay 2 Play on is weak to me!
Yay for the CIT.
The team is young in terms of players who are returning next year.
Even returnees with serious minutes this year could use more games.
-Fotu could use another road game (UH will win the first game).
-Stanhardinger could use another game for the role he’ll be adjusting to next year.
-Jawato could use another game to polish his game for pt.
The other young one is Gib Arnold.
Now is the time for him to learn from being ambushed by UCI’s strategically out of character attack, with that game fresh in mind and refreshers he’ll get from watching the tournament coaching for fringe teams like St Louis, Ohio State, and VCU.
Because Reardon’s condition will be met.
The corporate people and the wee folk who Jay is counting on know all about pay to play, as seen from the corporate inaugural luau for the Mayor and the lack of outcry for the Mayor wanting to raise our gas tax to cover what they stole from the highway trust fund.
(Uncle Ben would have had mock beef stew (with hot dogs) at his inaugural, where Panos would have unveiled a simple infrastructure plan.)
Pay to play is the way it is in the public arena.
I say nay. Have a little class man. Have a little pride. If you ain’t one of the best (68 (NCAA) plus 32 (NIT) ) 90 teams in Americas wait till next year. This is like paying your prom date by the hour so you can say you went to prom. You did, but it’s just a little sketchy. UH had their chance for post season play – and they were down by 22 in the first half. And why Chicago State? 10 games under .500? You gotta be kidding me. More smoke and mirrors from the men’s basketball team.
Did Benji come from Chicago State?
12. Yes, Benji Taylor was head coach at Chicago State.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjy_Taylor
We are going to play no matter what. Hopefully, Gib will be innovative. Watching the team work the ball to Vander on the inside has become painfully frustrating. It doesnt matter if Joaquim is triple teamed! Look, good for the players to play an extra game. Horrible for fans to watch the same routine with predictable results.