Starting a streak will require breaking another for the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team.
The Rainbow Wahine departed on a Big West road trip on Tuesday aiming to post back-to-back wins for the first time since the final weekend of 2022 in a checkerboard conference season to date.
Their next opportunity comes today against a UC San Diego team that has won the past three meetings between the programs.
The Tritons swept last year’s series, handing UH two of its three Big West losses, and rallied from an 18-point deficit in a 60-57 win on Jan. 5 in Manoa. A little more than a month later, the Wahine enter the rematch at UCSD’s LionTree Arena coming off of their most commanding performance of the season and well aware of the challenges the Tritons present.
“They’re tough, they return a lot of really good, experienced players,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “They play hard, they’re really intelligent, they run their stuff well. This is a team, for whatever reason, they can find our cracks in the armor.”
UH (9-12, 7-5 Big West) enters the road trip in fifth place in the conference, one game behind UCSD (11-11, 8-4) and three behind leader Long Beach State. The Wahine will cap the week at Cal State Fullerton (10-12, 5-8) on Saturday.
UH went into the last matchup with UCSD riding a season-high three-game winning streak and appeared on its way to a 3-0 start in Big West play when a 21-2 run gave the Wahine a 32-14 lead late in the season quarter.
Instead, guard Sydney Brown scored 13 points in the third quarter to spark the comeback and backcourt partner Julia Macabuhay finished it with 11 in the fourth, including the go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:40 left.
After the hot start, UH shot 30% in the second half to UCSD’s 52%.
“They play our tendencies defensively,” Beeman said. “They play off people, they play tight on (other) people. We have to be able to find a way to score when they’re taking away what it is we want to do.”
The Wahine did just about anything they wanted to do in last Saturday’s 80-58 win over Cal Poly and will try to carry the momentum and chemistry into today’s game.
UH went 5-for-5 from 3-point range in a 24-4 run to open the game and forward Kallin Spiller finished 9-for-11 in the paint in a 19-point performance. Guard Meilani McBee went 4-for-5 behind the arc and McKenna Haire, who started the last games, added two 3-pointers and also found mid-range openings.
“They had to get out of the paint to go guard those 3-point shooters, so I felt lucky enough that I was getting great passes inside to be able to finish those,” Spiller said. “So I think when we’re able to hit on both of those cylinders it makes us an impossible team to guard.”
While the Wahine were able to maintain a wire-to-wire lead against the Mustangs, Beeman pointed to their ability to overcome moments of adversity as a key entering today’s game.
“When games don’t start out easy, when we don’t start out strong, we have to be able to continue to elevate our game,” she said. “Next play mentality, stop-score-stop, whatever lingo you want to use, we have to be able to withstand that and play.”
Big West women’s basketball
At LionTree Arena; La Jolla, Calif.
Hawaii (9-12, 7-5 BWC) at UC San Diego (11-11, 8-4)
>> When: Today, 5 p.m.
>> TV/Radio: None
>> Online: ESPN+
