A decade after what we wistfully recall as the collective "golden age" of University of Hawai'i conference era basketball, today we face the prospect of the ...

Dark age?

To peer far down standings that have the Rainbow Warrior and Rainbow Wahine teams languishing at the bottom of the nine-school Western Athletic Conference today is to make the days when both the men and women were bidding for conference championships and filling seats seem even more distant.

While the Fabulous Five set the standard in the days (1970-'72) before conference affiliation, it was the 1996-1998 seasons, featuring Anthony Carter and Alika Smith for the men and Nani Cockett and BJ Itoman for the women, that rocked the home floor in conference times. Seems like an eternity, doesn't it?

Back then, we were calculating how many road wins it would take to win the WAC and looking forward to showdowns with Fresno State and others that had postseason implications.

These days we wonder when UH's next wins — against anybody — might come. And, increasingly, if its teams can avoid the cellar or tournament play-in games.

That both the 'Bows (1-6) and Rainbow Wahine (0-6) are last in the WAC standings, a combined 1-12 as conference play hits the halfway point, is a sobering remainder of just how deep the struggles have gotten.

In the nearly quarter century that the two UH teams have simultaneously been in conferences, they have never both finished in the cellar in the same season. The Rainbow Wahine have yet to finish on the bottom in any of their conference affiliations — Pacific Coast Athletic Association, Big West or WAC. The men haven't done so since the 1987-'88 season, Riley Wallace's first campaign.

Indeed, last place is a rare double for anyone. In the previous nine WAC seasons, only once has a school had the distinction of locking up both the men's and women's cellar: Texas-El Paso in 2001-'02.

This would be a particularly ignominious year to go about it because you won't find a WAC team — women's or men's — nationally ranked in basketball. None of the women's teams is receiving votes in The Associated Press poll. It is testament to the perception of the WAC's weakness on the men's side that even at 19-1 (7-0 WAC), Utah State hasn't been able to crash the major polls.

With no title to chase this year, UH has half a conference season in which to escape the kind of history its teams have avoided for 24 years.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.