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ANAHEIM, CALIF. » Hawaii basketball’s postseason is on life support, but the plug hasn’t yet been pulled.
A second straight appearance for the Rainbow Warriors in the pay-to-play CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament is highly unlikely on the heels of their 87-84 overtime loss to Cal State Northridge in the Big West quarterfinals on Thursday.
But not impossible.
Hawaii athletic director Ben Jay was not ready to declare the 2013-14 season officially over as of Friday night.
"Discussions are going on, but I think our chances are slim," Jay said.
Any CIT scenario for UH (20-11) would likely involve traveling to play at least one game on the West Coast to negate much of the costs of playing in the 32-team tournament headed up by former UH coach Riley Wallace. Host teams must pay the CIT upwards of $30,000 per game.
UH might not know with absolute certainty until Sunday, when at-large bids trickle down from the NCAA and NIT tournaments to the CIT and CBI.
Most of UH’s coaching staff and players flew back to the islands on Friday under the belief that their season was over.
A similar situation played out last season, when UH was one-and-done in the Big West tournament and returned to the islands under the belief its season was completed at 17-14. Instead, UH accepted an invite to the CIT at the last second. It lost 69-65 to Air Force, ending 2012-13 on a four-game slide.
Point guard Keith Shamburger tweeted, "had a fun year with the guys thanks to everybody who supported us this year. we gave it our all and next year will be a better (one). wish it didn’t end this early but we will learn from this."
