Laura Beeman isn’t concerned about her team’s energy going into a rare road game on a back-to-back night.
As far as the Hawaii coach is concerned, the Rainbow Wahine should have plenty left after expending little in an 84-44 drubbing at Arizona State to open the 2013-14 season on Saturday.
"I didn’t feel like a number of the girls played hard enough that tomorrow’s game should bother them," a disgusted Beeman said in a postgame phone interview. "It’s not going to come back to the schemes. It’s not going to come back to what we know how to do. It’s going to come back to the buy-in and the effort, and we may have a little bit of a rough (nonconference) season until we figure out some leadership."
UH plays Northern Arizona at 3 p.m. Mountain time (noon Hawaii) today. The Wahine drove from Tempe to Flagstaff soon after the 40-point rout — their worst margin of defeat and most points allowed in Beeman’s two years.
That wasn’t exactly what the coach had in mind to build off of last year’s 17-14 breakthrough in her first go-around, especially with the team’s core intact.
It was 71-27 with 10 minutes to play before junior wing Ashleigh Karaitiana (15 points) scored several buckets late for UH. Senior forward Kamilah Jackson added 11 points and six rebounds.
After UH briefly took the lead at 5-4 on a three-point play by Jackson, the Sun Devils seized control with a 10-0 run fueled by fullcourt pressure and never looked back, leading by 26 at halftime.
UH committed 26 turnovers to ASU’s 21, but the more athletic Sun Devils had 22 assists to just four for the Wahine, and shot 9-for-23 on 3s while UH did not make a long ball in four attempts.
ASU, picked in the Pac-12 preseason poll to finish ninth, had 17 steals.
"It wasn’t so much point guard play as it was wing play," Beeman said. "Our wings had a really difficult time handling the pressure and getting open. So we were never really in a situation where we had great timing to get into our offense. We did a lot of standing around and watching tonight. We did not work hard to start our offense."
Three players — Morgan Mason, Briana Harris and Angelina Smith — made their UH debuts. Mason, the starting point guard, played only 19 minutes, while Harris fouled out in 12 with five turnovers.
Beeman said starting wing Shawna Kuehu (1-for-7, two points) is questionable for today’s game with a left arm bruise.
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