Kiwi special
By the time San Diego State beat BYU in double-overtime thriller Monday night, it was already after midnight in Arizona and after 2 a.m. on the East Coast.
So when SDSU coach Steve Fisher joined Aqeel Quinn and Winston Shepard on the interview podium afterward, only one question was asked of the players.
An awkward silence ensued, with the few remaining folks in the Lahaina Civic Center media room typing away, heads down.
“I know this is not going to make any deadline anywhere except maybe New Zealand,” Fisher said. “So I don’t blame you for not having any questions. I’d like to go home.
“So any questions?”
Hangover free
For BYU, the double-overtime loss was one of those painful memories that isn’t always easy to shake off. And the Cougars had to come back to play at 11:30 a.m. local time on Tuesday.
But BYU led Chaminade 66-43 at halftime and rolled to a 121-85 win.
“I was just really impressed how focused and dialed in they were,” BYU coach Dave Rose said. “I’ve been through some tough turnarounds with some teams and this was maybe as impressive as I’ve seen.”
Rose tried to do his part by adding some perspective to the game: It was under tough circumstances, but it was still a college game, and in Maui no less.
“The message to our guys was it’s a long summer and a long offseason,” Rose said. “You think about the days when you’re trying to find 10 guys in the gym. But we’ve got a game, we got fans and refs. We’re disappointed with the loss but also have a chance to go out and compete.”
Fashion statement
Team staffers in the Maui Invitational typically don’t wear the usual suits, instead going with either golf shirts or a more local flair.
Arizona did both. While the UA coaches wore solid-colored sport shirts for the second straight day — white on Monday, navy on Tuesday — UA trainer Justin Kokoskie sat near the end of the Wildcats’ bench with a red aloha shirt.
The big number
10 Three-pointers made by BYU’s Chase Fischer in 13 attempts Tuesday, tying the Maui Invitational record and breaking the school record set by Jimmer Fredette. BYU’s Kyle McAlarney (Notre Dame, 2008) and Christophe Varidel (Chaminade, 2013) also shot 10 threes in Maui Invitational games.
Long memories
For a Division II coach, Chaminade’s Eric Boviard has it pretty good: He says it’s easy to recruit kids to play in Hawaii, the weather’s nice and he gets three televised games in the Maui Invitational every year.
What’s not so nice: That people still associate Chaminade with its mammoth upset of then-No. 1 Virginia and Ralph Sampson way back in 1982.
“When I took this job four years ago, I didn’t realize that every day of my life the 1982 win versus Virginia will be brought up in one aspect or the other, whether I’m walking down Waikiki or just talking to anybody,” Boviard said.
History lesson
But as it turned out, that 1982 game actually led to the birth of the Maui Invitational. The tournament’s official guide says then-Virginia coach Terry Holland encouraged Chaminade to invite teams to Hawaii to play in a tournament. It was first played on the Big Island in 1984 and moved to Maui the following year.
Quotable
“We’ve had (tourney chair and former Wake Forest coach) Dave Odom over here for four years giving defensive clinic presentations on the island. I probably should have paid attention.”
— Boviard, after Chaminade allowed BYU to shoot 55.8 percent from the field and hit 17 three-pointers in a 36-point Cougar win
No more microphone
Missouri coach Kim Anderson agreed to wear an ESPN microphone for the Tigers’ consolation bracket game with Purdue, but it didn’t take long for him to change his mind.
That’s what trailing by 25 points at halftime can do to a coach.
“I told the guy at halftime there is nothing that I’m going to say that would be television-worthy,” Anderson said after Mizzou lost 82-61. “Not that it was bad or anything, it’s just I think it was a situation where I needed to coach my team and I didn’t need to be on ESPN. They were seeing it live. They didn’t need to hear any commentary from me because it probably wouldn’t have been any better than the play.”
Bruce Pascoe
