When the University of Tennessee-Martin — yes, THAT Tennessee-Martin — missed 7 of it first 8 free-throw attempts and 10 of its initial 13 field-goal tries last night you knew this wasn't going to be a Hawai'i basketball game long on drama.

Not even with starting center Ahmet Gueye on the bench in street clothes, resting a sore right knee.

But, then, well before tipoff of the 66-53 Rainbow Warrior victory the game had taken a backseat to swirling speculation about what today's tentatively scheduled 1 p.m. Riley Wallace retirement-related announcement in the Edwin S. N. Wong Hospitality Suite might hold.

Indeed, the fifth consecutive UH win was overshadowed by rumors of an impending announcement well before the doors opened to the Stan Sheriff Center. Speculation that followed Wallace to the parking lot as he climbed into an SUV and made a zip-the-lip gesture.

The juiciest — and hardest to imagine — of the rumors being that Wallace would step down prior to the Western Athletic Conference season, which opens next week, in favor of longtime assistant coach Bob Nash. The better, the thinking went, for Nash to position himself for the vacancy when Wallace's contract, which mandates no renewal, expires at the end of the current season.

But to expect Wallace to walk away at this point would be to see him make a 180-degree turn in personality at age 65. It would be to forget the type of man he has been and ignore his 20-year track record here as head coach.

For Wallace has been nothing if not feisty and stubborn. Two of his more enduring if not always endearing traits. If two heart procedures and other medical problems haven't forced him to the sideline, it is hard to imagine anything else might. If past duels with athletic administration haven't gotten him to walk away from his life's work, why would he do it now before his contract expires?

In post-game discussion about next week's road trip to New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech, Wallace peppered talk with "we" and "us" in the manner of a man who plans to be in Las Cruces, N.M. and Ruston, La.

Knowing him, Wallace will be on the UH sideline there and all the way through the WAC Tournament to the bitter end of his contract in March, which is what the conclusion to his quarter-century stay in Manoa may unfortunately become.

More likely any announcement today will be more of a clearing of the air, Wallace's grudging acknowledgement that the current contract is, indeed, the end. Willingly or otherwise. Something he has heretofore avoided saying in so many words.

Such an admission would likely be the byproduct of a closed-door meeting with athletic director Herman Frazier earlier this month.

People around the athletic program have said that Frazier wants such a declaration of Wallace's status by the coach so that the already slow-to-start search for a successor can officially begin. And, Wallace wants Frazier to agree to give Nash, a veteran of 27 years in the UH program, genuine consideration for the position.

Wallace brought UH out of the shadow of the lingering effects of NCAA probation. He returned UH to the postseason after a 15-year exile. To see him walk away from his job at UH even one day before his contract mandates that he must would be the biggest surprise of this season.

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