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Right about now, convention tells us, the Hawaii Pacific University women’s basketball team should be working itself up into a real screaming mad lather.
After being ranked second in one national poll and fourth in another, would anybody blame the unbeaten (13-0) Sharks if the prey they most wanted to circle was the NCAA selection committee that made them the fifth seed in the six-team Division II West Regional?
There is much for the owners of the 38-game winning streak, the longest in Division II right now, to bristle about as they prepare to play Azusa Pacific Friday in Grand Junction, Colo., where the winner of the event earns a berth in the elite eight in Columbus, Ohio (March 23-26).
Yet, in Zoom sessions and interviews you will hear not an angry word of protest from players or their head coach. Nor is there any sign of even a minuscule chip on their shoulders when they look down the list to see Colorado School of Mines (17-3), Western Colorado (14-5) and Westminster (11-5) among those seeded ahead of them and only Black Hills State (14-8) below them.
But, then, maybe the ability to shrug off disappointment and stay focused is part of what has allowed them to grind out 38 consecutive victories over two seasons in the first place. Perhaps it is an indication of how they have dug themselves out of what few holes that have confronted them.
It is a telling sign of how you master the kind of consistency that, for some of them, results in four consecutive NCAA berths.
In this the players, notably leaders Amy Baum and Alysha Marcucci, mirror their coach, Reid Takatsuka, who, as they addressed the seeding slight the other day, seemed as unperturbed as if he had lost a pen.
“From an individual standpoint it’s difficult for me to understand (the seeding), but at the same time it doesn’t surprise me,” Tatatsuka told the Star-Advertiser’s Jason Kaneshiro. “When it comes to this time of the year I’m always pretty cautious about our national standing in relation to the regional standing. It surprises me, but it doesn’t. What I’ve always told our team is the rankings don’t matter until the very last game.”
The Sharks have let PacWest Conference Commissioner Bob Hogue do the fuming for them. “When the (seedings) came out it was like, ‘Wow! Did that really happen?’ ” Hogue said.
“I was very disappointed they (the NCAA committee) didn’t take into consideration some very obvious facts. In the case of HPU, they are the defending No. 1 team in the region with all their players back,” Hogue said. “They have won 38 in a row and have been in the regionals (five) years in a row.”
And, they are the only team on the floor with a victory over a Division I opponent (UH).
Yet, while the Sharks received the PacWest automatic NCAA berth, they are seeded behind another conference member, Azusa Pacific (10-4).
Of course, the Sharks have encountered bigger disappointments. Last year they were 29-1 (22-0 PacWest) and scheduled to host the regional when the pandemic hit, ending their season.
So, they must figure, what’s one more hurdle to overcome now?
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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