Most University of Central Arkansas athletic teams are ineligible for UCA Division I postseason play until the 2010-2011 season.

The positive side of that is in order to mitigate the possible recruiting damages from the transitional process to NCAA Division I, UCA coaches and athletic officials have gotten creative and proactive that has resulted in some exciting prospects.

We're talking exotic travel.

We're talking real possibilities in Hawaii and Cancun.

UCA officials are currently in negotiations for the Bears to open the 2009 football season against the University of Hawaii in Hawaii. The Rainbow Warriors, as you recall, appeared in the Sugar Bowl last season.

The sticking point is the day of the game.

UCA requested Thursday night. Hawaii officials wanted Saturday night. UCA has offered to compromise by playing on a Friday night, and Teague is awaiting Hawaii's response.

A game in Hawaii is obviously a great recruiting tool and fantastic for athletic officials and fans. The University of Hawaii, which has been doing this for years even when it was off the radar as a BCS team, pays travel expenses for the team and also provides the athletic department with a nice check to take home.

"The issue is the travel time getting home," Teague said. "If we play on Saturday night, then the travel and getting ready to play a game the next week can be really tough. Hawaii is a five-hour time difference, and so it amounts to about a 10-hour difference coming home because you're losing time. That could wear a team out."

Travel time from major airports in the Central Time Zone to Honolulu ranges from 10 to 14 hours, depending on time and connections. The UCA team and official party would probably charter out of Little Rock, which would keep travel time at a minimum.

During the original negotiations with the Western Athletic Conference institution, UCA officials proposed to use the game as a "bowl game" for the Bears with the game the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

"If they (Hawaii officials) hadn't been fully scheduled on that date, they were good with that," Teague said.

If negotiations with Hawaii fall through, Plan B, according to Teague, is a road game against a middle- to lower-level team from either the Big 12, Southeastern Conference or Big 10, not quite as exotic but more accessible to a larger number of fans.

The scheduling philosophy in football right now is for the Bears to play a "money game" against an Division I Football Bowl Championship (FBS) team each year.

Now to basketball, where a deal appears to be closer.

UCA men's coach Rand Chappell, who has taken the Bears to preseason tournaments in Connecticut and the University of Kentucky the past two seasons, had a choice this year among a preseason tournament in Cancun, Mexico, and tournaments in either Anchorage or Fairbanks, Alaska.

He chose Cancun because the total package was a little better and the Alaska tournaments feature more high-profile, very challenging Division I matchups. It could have meant UCA would play teams such as Duke, Stanford and Bradley in a row.

"And I think given the choice in November, our players would probably prefer Cancun," Chappell said.

The Cancun tournament offers UCA two games with mid-to-lower-major institutions, which would offer the Bears more competitive game opportunities to start the season. Instead of icons, they would be playing peers.

"And it's a different format," Teague said. "We would open the tournament against Vanderbilt on its home court in Nashville on a Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving), then fly to Cancun and play teams similar to us on Friday and Saturday."

Chappell said, while nothing is official, the arrangements involving the Cancun tournament are 95-99 percent complete, which translates to very likely. UCA officials are basically waiting for the company that is putting together the tournament to arrange the schedule in Cancun and send out the contracts.

That could highlight the most attractive and challenging men's schedule in UCA basketball history. The Bears are set to open the season against Northwestern in the Chicago area with the Cancun tourney looming shortly afterward. UCA will also play in Missouri State's new state-of-the-art arena in Springfield and have Division I home games against North Carolina-Greensboro, Bowling Green and St. Bonaventure.

"We open with a Big 10 opponent (Northwestern), then, in the first game of the Cancun tournament, we would likely play Vanderbilt, which has a unique arena and has been a top-25, SEC team for the last few years," Chappell said. "Missouri State is a Missouri Valley opponent, then some of our non-conference home games feature St. Bonaventure, an Atlantic 10 program with a lot of tradition, and Bowling Green, which is from the Mid-America Conference, usually one of the best of the mid-majors. Another home opponent is Tennessee-Martin, which has Lester Hudson, who was projected to go in the NBA draft, withdrew his name, is a projected first-round pick for next year right now and may be one of the best players to ever come into the Farris Center."

Last season, Hudson became the first player in Ohio Valley Conference history to record a quadruple double of 25 points, 10 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 steals against Central Baptist College.

Chappell added, "So, we've got a non-conference schedule with some good teams from some highly regarded conferences. But also, we doing what we have talked about all along as far as bringing good teams and good players in here for the home folks."

No postseason can be a major blow in building a program. It's a good sign that UCA officials are proactive in developing counter punches.

Some exciting times are ahead, which should play well with an expanding a fan base.

(Sports columnist David McCollum can be reached at 505-1235 or david.mccollum@thecabin.net)

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