They tell you to take every game the same, and it all makes sense, until you get to the last one.
They tell you to take every game the same, and it all makes sense, until you get to the last one.
“I don’t like to think about it,” said Felicia Kolb,” it makes me very sad.”
Kolb is one of three UH-Hilo seniors, along with Alia Alvarez and Ashley Duyao, who will be wearing the Vulcans uniform for the last time — barring a playoff invitation — Saturday when they take their best shot against Azusa Pacific in a 5 p.m. game at Hilo Civic that could lead to the postseason.
“From the time I started playing in fifth grade, it kind of took me over, it’s always been a part of what I do,” Kolb said. “I’ve always had it to prepare for, to work at, but after this, I won’t have it anymore, it’s my last game,” she said.
According to an email from the Pacific West Conference office, a win by UHH, accompanied by a Point Loma Nazarene loss to Chaminade would secure the sixth and final playoff berth.
Kolb, from a small town in Idaho, took a circuitous route to the Big Island. She was attending Wenatchee Valley Community College in Washington state, playing basketball, where she was defender of the year for the Knights as a freshman, and then tore up her knee in her sophomore season and took a year off to rehabilitate and work on her academics. Her boyfriend Daniel Andrade was a Hilo boy and they decided to attend UHH together.
“I was basically out for a year and I didn’t have statistics for schools to evaluate, so I decided to come over here and see if I could try out,” Kolb said.
Essentially, she fell into the lap of coach David Kaneshiro and developed into his best defender. When somebody starts knocking down shots, Kaneshiro switches Kolb’s defensive assignment and she is counted on to calm things down. Her tenacity has served her, and her teammates well.
“She bought in to what we’re doing, and it’s so impressive to see someone like her (5-foot-8, 136 pounds), battle like she does,” Kaneshiro said. “She had 11 rebounds the other night, she is a motivation for the whole team.”
Kaneshiro has mentioned the contributions of supportive roster players such as Alicia Alvarez and Ashley Duyao, the other two seniors this season, but it’s fair to say the three of them didn’t make a huge statistical dent in production.
Defense and being a good teammates are necessary but the men’s team is facing more eventful losses in terms of numbers.
Senior guards Jordan Russell (12.5 points per game, 3.0 assists per game), and Vandyon Lockett (12.3 ppg, 4.3 apg) — the shortest starting backcourt combo in the PacWest — and senior inside players Salim Gloyd (22.8 ppt, 8.4 rebounds per game), and Nate Walker (12.1 ppt, 6.3 rpg), represent the core of the team. Those four combined for 73 percent of the Vulcans’ scoring (59.7 ppg), 65 percent of the rebounds (21.8), 70 percent of the assists (10.1), and 65 percent of free throws made (236 of 363).
“Those are outstanding numbers and a real credit to those guys,” said coach GE Coleman. “They’ve come in, they completely bought in, totally, in every way, to what we’re trying to do. These are great people.”
They share one more thing Saturday, playing together in their last college game, and according to the league office, a win clinches the last playoff spot because the Vulcans own tiebreaker advantages over three other teams with identical 9-10 records.
So, apart from the playoffs, what does the last game signify?
“I think legacy,” said Walker. “It’s bittersweet, you never want to play the last game, but I hope I set some kind of standard for someone coming through next.”
His partner in the front court said he isn’t clinging to the final game.
“For me, it’s more about the journey,” Gloyd said. “I don’t think about it ending, I think of it as a phase. I think of the work I’ve done to get here, the people who said I would never make it, I wouldn’t be good enough.”
Gloyd is a math major with an emphasis in cryptology, the business of decoding internet codes and such, as is being debated these days with Apple-FBI dispute over a mass killer’s phone. Floyd will do all right whether he gets a professional offer or not.
Russell will finish his degree in business management and be ready for whatever may come if he needs to go back to “civilian life.”
“It’s reality,” he said, “it’s going to happen, you have to prepare yourself mentally for it.”
Lockett, a criminal justice major close to graduation, may have capsulized the feeling all of them have for the game.
“I’ve played this game so long, it’s had a meaning to me and I don’t want to be a ‘regular person,’ not just yet,” he said. “This is life, for me, this game. I will always play the game, it’s part of who I am.”
”Regular people” may not understand, but everyone suiting up one more time for the Vulcans comprehends the sentiment.
Playoffs possibilities
A week of Pacific West Conference playoff confusion for the six teams to be selected for men’s and women’s basketball tournaments finally settled into a final day of possibilities Saturday.
It all starts with winning against Azusa Pacific. A loss by either the Vulcan men’s or women’s team eliminates them from the postseason. But a win could mean a lot. Here’s the breakdown for each, according to a Friday email from the PWC:
Women (10-9 PWC, 10-14 overall) — Azusa Pacific is 18-1 in the PWC, 24-3 overall and has won 12 in a row after winning at Chaminade (78-55), Thursday.
A win over the Cougars, combined with a Point Loma Nazarene (11-8, 18-9), loss at Chaminade sends the Vulcans to the conference tournament with the sixth and final berth.
Men (9-10, 9-14) — After starting 0-9, UH-Hilo gets the sixth slot in the conference tournament with a win over Azusa Pacific (14-5, 20-7), and holds head-to-head tiebreakers against Fresno Pacific, Chaminade and Dominican.
The Vulcans don’t make it, according to the PWC, if they fall into a three-way tie with Chaminade and Dominican, in which case Chaminade (2-1), would have a tiebreaker edge over UH-Hilo (2-2) and Fresno Pacific (1-2).