Over the first four games of conference play, the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team faced three of the top five teams in the Big West standings.
This week, the Rainbow Wahine take on two teams with a combined record of 5-30.
Not that they’re keeping close tabs on such numbers heading into their second road trip of the Big West schedule.
BIG WEST WOMEN’S BASKETBALL
At Irvine, Calif.
>> Hawaii (9-8, 2-2 Big West) vs. UC Irvine (3-15, 0-4)
>> When: Today, 5 p.m. Hawaii time
>> Where: Bren Events Center
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“I don’t even look at records,” UH senior Destiny King said. “That shouldn’t matter how we prepare ourselves, because we still have to grow as a team, we have to prepare for the tournament.
“Every game, every team we play in this conference, it needs to be the same preparation and the same focus.”
The Rainbow Wahine (9-8, 2-2 Big West) departed Wednesday for Southern California and face UC Irvine (3-15, 0-4) today at the Bren Events Center. Tip off is scheduled for 5 p.m. Hawaii time.
The road trip concludes Saturday at CSUN (2-15, 0-3) in a rematch of UH’s 77-50 win a week ago at the Stan Sheriff Center.
Both of UH’s Big West losses have come against the two remaining undefeated teams in league play, UC Davis (3-0) and UC Riverside (4-0), by a total of five points. UH led in both games only to fall short late in the fourth quarter.
“It didn’t sit well with us,” King said of the 77-74 loss to UCR last Saturday. “We were frustrated. Me personally, I wasn’t mad or sad, I was just frustrated and wanting to know what more I could have done.”
King scored a career-high 24 points in the loss to the Highlanders and leads the Wahine into the road trip with 10.3 points per game. She’s also tied with fellow senior Kalei Adolpho for the team’s rebounding lead with 5.8 per game.
Freshman point guard Olivia Crawford hit four 3-pointers against UCR and finished with a season-high 13 points. She started the past five games and is 8-for-12 from 3-point range in four Big West contests while averaging 8.3 points in league play.
Crawford said her confidence “was high before I was starting just because I knew I could trust my teammates and my coaching staff.”
“Now it’s knowing that they trust me even more and I’m just doing whatever I can to make sure we keep playing well,” she said.
The Wahine open the trip against a UC Irvine team on a 10-game losing streak and coach Doug Oliver announced last week that he will retire at the end of the season.
The Anteaters are shooting a league-low 35 percent from the field and average 58.4 points per game, next to last in the conference, while surrendering 76.3.
Even so, senior guard Raelyn Cheung-Sutton leads the Big West with 112 assists and junior forward Mokun Fajemisin has a league-high 30 blocked shots. Fajemisin also leads the UCI regulars with 9.3 points per game. Freshman guard Andrea Ritter joined the rotation for the last three games and is averaging 10.3 points in that stretch, including an 18-point performance in a 74-61 loss to UC Davis last week.
After taking on UCI, the Wahine face CSUN for the second time in nine days to close the regular-season series with the Matadors. UH dominated from start to finish in last Thursday’s meeting with Ashleigh Karaitiana leading the Wahine with 17 points. UH outscored the Matadors 38-8 in the paint.
