Hawaii falls to Illinois

Well, we've avoided impeachment proceedings so far -- must have due to our parading around in sackcloth and shes and admitting our powerlessness vis-a-vis our addiction to bias -- so we are back with yet another edition of PTW.

What a strange game Hawaii and Illinois played last night. The Rainbow Warriors fell by just 10 against a top Big 10 team on the road and yet admitted played poorly, with too many mistakes. But then do check out the Hawaii-Illinois rebounding differential. Astounding.

It's cold right now in the Midwest (duh). So we loved the headline the other day (sorry, can't recall which Hawaii newspaper it was) that had the game preview headline 'Champaign on ice" ;-)

Turnovers take Rainbow Warrriors out of game
Jack McCarthy
Special to the Star-Bulletin
Dec 9, 2008

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. » Hawaii associate basketball coach Jackson Wheeler had an almost pleading tone during a timeout late in the opening half of last night's nonconference basketball game at Illinois.

"If we didn't turn the ball over we'd be right there," Wheeler told the huddled Rainbow Warriors, who trailed by just five at that point.

But the same woes that have plagued Hawaii all season reared up again as Illinois scored 28 points off turnovers on the way to a 68-58 victory at Assembly Hall.

"You can't afford to give a good team like Illinois that many opportunities," said Hawaii head coach Bob Nash. "They had a lot of easy transition baskets and that's way too many.

"But I like the way the team fought and stayed together and they did an incredible job on the boards (a 43-14 advantage). Just way too many (22) turnovers..."

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