UH Basketball saga takes top billing

The top local sports story of the year for 2015 is a University of Hawaii men’s basketball saga that, far from ending with the dawn of a New Year, will stretch into 2017 and beyond.

Penalties meted out to UH by the NCAA Committee on Infractions Dec. 22 were supposed to bring closure to one of the most controversial chapters in the school’s athletic history.

But the NCAA’s 26-month process will continue to be felt though a ban from postseason play next season (2016-17) and scholarship reductions each of the next two seasons (2016-17 and 2017-18).

Potentially the most serious blow is an NCAA policy that permits players who will be seniors next season to transfer out without having to sit out a year if their school has been slapped with a postseason ban. That is an option that would be available to Aaron Valdes, Stefan Jankovic, Stefan Jovanovic and Mike Thomas.

And while new head coach Eran Ganot wrestles with the issues, ex-coach Gib Arnold is due two more six-figure payments over the next two years.

2. Chow fired, Rolo hired

T-shirts emblazoned with the “Live Aloha, Play Warrior” motto of new head football coach Nick Rolovich have replaced the briefly popular “Chow Time” items of his predecessor, Norm Chow.

The question for much of 2015 wasn’t so much whether Chow would endure long enough to reach the final season of his five-year contract but who would replace him — and when?

The answer was not long in coming as the 36-year old Rolovich, a popular record-setting quarterback, won out over his iconic former head coach, June Jones, for the opportunity to rebuild a program that has suffered five consecutive losing seasons.

The end of Chow’s four-year, 10-36 reign, including 2-7 in 2015, came the morning after a particularly dispiriting 58-7 loss to Air Force on Oct. 31.

3. Titans take Mariota

As the bank commercials remind us, Marcus Mariota long dreamed of being an NFL quarterback.

The Saint Louis School graduate got there as the No. 2 overall pick in the April NFL Draft, the highest a player from Hawaii has ever been taken.

The Tennessee Titans made the University of Oregon Heisman Trophy winner their starting quarterback.

Mariota started 2015 in January playing in the inaugural national championship game where the Ducks lost to Ohio State.

4. Wahine make Elite Eight

Unseeded by the tournament committee, the Rainbow Wahine volleyball team climbed its way into the NCAA’s Elite Eight for the first time since 2009 and accomplished it by vanquishing two seeded opponents.

One of them, defending national champion Penn State, fell in a sweep as UH moved out of the Sweet 16.

The Rainbow Wahine, who finished 29-2, met their end in the Des Moines, Iowa, regional final against Minnesota and concluded the year at No. 7 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association final poll, their highest since 2011.

5. Moore wins world title

Carissa Moore’s globe-trotting brought her back to home waters to win a third surfing World Championship.

The 23-year old Punahou School graduate won four of 10 events on the Women’s Samsung Galaxy Championship Tour but claimed her third world title in five years in the Maui Target Pro at Honolua Bay.