Wahine seeking complete game

It’s about more than redemption or taking advantage of home court. Or even about snapping a three-game losing skid.

Halfway through the Western Athletic Conference season, the Hawaii women’s basketball team wants all the hours of practice and hard work to show up in the box score. The Rainbow Wahine want to play the entire 40 minutes with the same consistency that they’ve shown for a half or parts of two halves.

Unforced turnovers, poor free-throw shooting and lack of success from 3-point point range. Hawaii knows what’s been wrong with its collective game and this is the time to fix it.

The Wahine take on San Jose State tonight, a team with an identical record (8-14 overall, 3-4 WAC) and with whom they share fourth place in the conference standings.

The big difference is that the Spartans defeated Hawaii back on Jan. 14 in the conference opener for both in San Jose, Calif.

"We definitely didn’t have the outcome that we wanted the last time we saw them," Wahine sophomore forward Kamilah Jackson said of the 83-67 loss. "It’s about redemption and taking care of the things we need to take care of. Less turnovers, make free throws, shut down their top players.

"A split with them would be good. We don’t want to be swept by them. And we want to end (the three-game home stand) with a win."

The Wahine have gone 0-2 at the Sheriff Center this month, including a 69-61 loss to Idaho, a game in which Hawaii led by 18 early in the second half.

It’s one of those games that Wahine coach Dana Takahara-Dias would dearly like back.

"We’ve watched game films of that over and over with the players and it’s blatant that we failed to do the things that we set out to do, especially in the second half.

"It was a combination of Idaho getting very hot, us getting very cold and our defense unable to sustain the intensity.

For San Jose, we want to run our game, play 94 feet with more causation and care. We need momentum before we go back out on the road."

To take a .500 conference record on the trip to New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech would be huge for Hawaii, which beat both the Aggies and Lady Techsters earlier this season. To top the Spartans, the Wahine will need to do a better job against three of the top-10 scorers in the WAC: senior forward Brittany Johnson (No. 1 at 19.4 ppg), senior guard Sara Plavijanin (No. 7, 13.7 ppg) and freshman guard Ta’Rea Cunningan (No. 8, 11.8 ppg).

The Wahine counter with Jackson, who is averaging 13.6 points and a WAC-leading 11.1 rebounds (ninth-best in the country). She also is No. 8 nationally in double-doubles with 12, but came up short the last time against the Spartans when fouling out with eight points, 13 rebounds.

Also looking for a bigger game is senior guard Breanna Arbuckle, who had 11 points, but was 5-for-10 from the line. Overall the Wahine were 13-for-21 from the line compared to the Spartans’ season-high 28-for-34.

"We need to play a complete game for 40 minutes," said Arbuckle, who moved into a tie for fourth on the UH career blocked-shots list with her 134th last week against Utah State. "We know what we’re capable of. We just need to do it."