Three styles of traditional dances highlighted the University of Hawaii basketball team’s senior night festivities on Saturday.
The Rainbow Wahine depart for California today with designs on dancing again at the end of the week.
UH punctuated the regular season with a convincing win over Cal Poly before celebrating the careers of its six seniors in a postgame program that featured Maori, Native American and Samoan dance performances in their honor.
After soaking in the emotion and the atmosphere of senior night, the Wahine turned their focus to the Big West tournament with a sense of unfinished business.
UH went into last year’s tournament as the regular-season champion and top seed, but an NCAA tournament berth slipped away with a loss to Cal State Northridge in the final. The Wahine return as the second seed and looking to go one step beyond.
“I think a lot of us have a chip on our shoulder from last year’s championship game,” senior Ashleigh Karaitiana said after Saturday’s 68-47 win over Cal Poly at the Stan Sheriff Center. “So we definitely want to go in and change the result we had the previous year.”
The Rainbow Wahine (19-10, 12-4 Big West) are scheduled to leave this morning and have until Friday to prepare for a semifinal game having secured a double bye.
The tournament opens Tuesday with fifth-seeded UC Santa Barbara facing eighth-seed UC Irvine and No. 6 Cal Poly plays No. 7 CSUN in the first round at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center.
The lowest remaining seed faces third seed Long Beach State and the higher seed takes on fourth seed UC Davis in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.
The tournament moves to the Honda Center on Friday for the semifinals. Top seeded and regular-season champion UC Riverside meets the lowest remaining seed. UH then takes on the highest remaining seed with tip-off scheduled for 12:30 p.m. Hawaii time.
The Big West’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament will be awarded in the championship game on Saturday at 1 p.m.
“We know what’s at stake, we know what we can do, what we’re capable of,” senior guard Marissa Wimbley said. “We’ll have a good week of practice and we’ll get ready for the tournament.”
UH enters the tournament with nine wins in its last 10 games powered by balance and defense.
The Wahine are tied for conference lead in scoring defense with 59.1 points allowed per game. That number drops to 55.8 in Big West games.
Senior forward Destiny King leads UH with 10.7 points per game, which ranks 14th in the conference. She’s followed by forward Megan Huff’s 9.3 and Karaitiana at 8.4. While the individual stats don’t jump off the page, six players scored at least eight points with Huff and Briana Harris leading UH with 11 each in Saturday’s win. Nine players average at least 15 minutes per game with King and Karaitiana topping the team at 26.
“That’s what is the beauty of this team,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “We have size, we have shooters, we have guards that can penetrate and we have some depth. It’s all of those factors that are going to take us longer into the tournament. The balance was wonderful.”
UH’s late-season run put the Wahine on the cusp of a second straight 20-win season after sitting at 10-9 overall and 3-3 in the conference after a loss at CSUN on Jan. 23. UH last won 20 games in consecutive seasons in 2001 and ‘02.
“I think we’re where we’re supposed to be. We’re peaking at the right time,” Karaitiana said. “I think in preseason a lot of us were questioning how we were going to be. Losing games was kind of scary for a lot of the girls, but like Coach Beeman said we have to believe in our process and we’re going to finish where we need to finish.”
BIG WEST WOMEN’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT
At Bren Events Center
TUESDAY
>> No. 5 UC Santa Barbara vs. No. 8 UC Irvine, 4 p.m.
>> No. 6 Cal Poly vs. No. 7 CSUN, 6:30 p.m.
WEDNESDAY
>> No. 3 Long Beach State vs. lowest remaining seed, 4 p.m.
>> No. 4 UC Davis vs. higher remaining seed, 6:30 p.m.
At Honda Center
FRIDAY
>> No. 1 UC Riverside vs. lowest remaining seed, 10 a.m.
>> No. 2 Hawaii vs. highest remaining seed, 12:30 p.m.
SATURDAY
>> Championship, 1 p.m.
