Athletic director Ben Jay said he plans to meet with University of Hawaii basketball coaches after the season to "find the right mix" for future scheduling.
The Rainbow Wahine and Rainbow Warriors have had disparate approaches to scheduling, especially this season.
The ‘Bows’ strength of schedule ranking is 244 (among 347 schools) while the Wahine are at 109 (among 345) entering the Big West Conference tournament today, according to RealtimeRPI.com. The Big West is ranked 21st among 31 men’s conferences and 11th among 31 women’s conferences.
Jay said he plans to meet with Rainbows coach Gib Arnold and Wahine coach Laura Beeman. "I just want to make sure that we sit down with our coaches and talk about it (scheduling)," Jay said.
Jay said he and coach Norm Chow have recently drawn up a series of scheduling parameters for football.
"I’ll basically have a say in these things, but I leave a lot of it up to the coaches. I really want to listen to their philosophy first. I want to understand how they have been doing it in the past."
Beeman inherited a schedule largely assembled by her predecessor, Dana Takahara Dias, that included the defending national champion, Baylor, and the runner-up, Stanford, on consecutive nights in November. The Wahine’s preconference schedule, which included Oregon, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Alabama, was ranked fifth in the country.
The ranking of the Rainbows’ schedule this season is expected to finish as the lowest in at least a decade. While the ‘Bows played Miami, Illinois, Nevada-Las Vegas and Mississippi, they also booked Maryland-Eastern Shore, Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Houston Baptist, North Dakota and Chaminade.
"Scheduling is not as easy as a lot of people think, and I’m aware of that," Jay said.
Although Jay said he and Chow have made scheduling out-of-subdivision teams a low priority, UH officials said one, Northern Iowa, was already in the process of being booked for 2014 when Jay took over in January. UH will play Northern Iowa, where the late Stan Sheriff was AD and football coach, Sept. 13, between games against Oregon State and Colorado.
