To be an artist, trim those nails

The late Toshiko Takaezu, Hawaii’s ceramic artist who died last week, was a master of more than one art. Dealing authoritatively with college students, after all, could be considered an art as well.

Her former colleagues at Princeton University, where she taught for 24 years, remembered that she wouldn’t tolerate her students trying to manage their pottery works with long fingernails. The professor ordered them all clipped.

All. Even the celebrity talons of one former student, actress Brooke Shields.

Being a master potter takes a practiced hand, but it’s good to see that Takaezu directed her students with an even hand, too. 

For UH hoops, another chance

Despite a bitter loss in the first round of the Western Athletic Conference tournament, the University of Hawaii basketball team’s turnaround season isn’t over just yet. It’s not the Big Dance, but for a UH team that finished 18-12 with one senior starter, the Collegeinsider.com Postseason Tournament just might be the next best thing.

Hawaii — making its first postseason appearance in seven seasons — plays host to the University of Portland tomorrow night in a first-round CIT game that figures to give the inexperienced Rainbow Warriors another taste of single-elimination tournament competition and the kind of effort it will take to reach the next level.

Missouri State and Old Dominion, winners of the last two CITs, were similarly untested teams. Now, ODU (27-9) is headed to the NCAA Tournament and Missouri State (25-8) hoping to follow or play in the National Invitation Tournament.