The Hawaii women’s basketball team faces the two teams that stood in their way of a third consecutive Big West Conference championship last season this week.
The regular-season champion Rainbow Wahine never got to the tournament final to face Saturday’s opponent, UC Irvine, after a shocking semifinal loss to UC Davis, which Hawaii hosts tonight at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
The Rainbow Wahine (11-6, 5-2 Big West) are riding a season-high-tying five-game winning streak heading into tonight’s game against the Aggies (12-6, 6-2), who are one of three teams ahead of UH in the conference standings.
Hawaii has used the last four games against the lower half of the conference to build some momentum and figure things out after it was announced it would without one of its top players, Daejah Phillips, who is no longer an active member of the Rainbow Wahine basketball program as of the last update given by the school two weeks ago.
“I think the schedule has been a little bit favorable to us. We needed some time to regroup and get our chemistry back and I think our girls have done that,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said Tuesday.
Hawaii has remained the top team in the conference in scoring defense, lowering its average points allowed to 53.6, ranking 10th in the nation, after holding four consecutive opponents to less than 50 points.
The major improvements have come on the offensive end as UH has finally found success getting the ball into the post after struggling with it during a stretch of five losses in six games crossing the new year.
Junior forward Imani Perez, who leads the conference shooting 55.6% from the field, is averaging 14.3 points and 5.0 rebounds over her last three games.
She scored a season-high 19 points in the win over CSUN after getting off a season-high 14 shots in a win over Cal State Fullerton.
UH has won the last four games that Perez has started.
“Offensively we’re starting to move the ball a lot more, which is helping our inside-outside game,” Perez said. “We have a big presence inside, as we know, one of the biggest presences, and I think we’re putting it all together still, but it’s looking really good.”
Reserve senior post player Brooklyn Rewers has continued her run of good play scoring in double figures in seven of the last nine games and matched Perez over the last three wins averaging five rebounds a game.
Freshman starting center Ritorya Tamilo ended a run of eight games in single figures in scoring with 11 in the win over CSUN while playing only 15 minutes.
She grabbed six rebounds in only 18 minutes in Saturday’s victory over Cal State Bakersfield.
“When we have gotten the ball inside to our bigs, we’ve scored more points, we’ve spread the offensive wealth across the table, and I think we’re very, very difficult to play when we’re playing inside-outside basketball,” Beeman said. “We have the best bigs in the conference. We have to continue to get the ball inside and that’s something we have to sustain if we want to continue being successful.”
Hawaii’s top-ranked scoring defense will be tested by the Aggies, who lead the conference in 12 statistical categories including scoring at 70.7 points per game, field-goal percentage (43.5%), 3-point percentage (33.9%) and rebound margin (5.2).
Senior guard Tova Sabel leads the team in scoring at 14.9 points per game and center Megan Norris averages 11.5 points and 7.6 rebounds per game.
Sabel led the Aggies in scoring in last season’s tournament win over UH that sent Hawaii to the Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament instead of a third consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.
“Can’t really think too much on last year,” Perez said. “Kind of have to think of right now and what’s happening now. I think we’re all ready to get it done.”
RAINBOW WAHINE BASKETBALL
At SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center
Hawaii (11-6, 5-2 Big West) vs. UC Davis (12-6, 6-2)
>> When: Tonight, 7 p.m.
>> TV: Spectrum Sports
>> Radio: 1420-AM / 92.7-FM
