Idaho’s big first-half run leads to win over Wahine

Another slow start cost the Hawaii women’s basketball team the opportunity to enter its final Western Athletic Conference tournament on a winning note.

The Rainbow Wahine gave up a debilitating 31-4 run in the first half as Idaho coasted to a 69-50 win on its senior day at the Cowan Spectrum in Moscow, Idaho, on Saturday.

With the loss, UH (11-18, 6-8 WAC) tumbled to the sixth seed in next week’s tournament in Las Vegas. The Wahine open up against third-seeded Louisiana Tech on Wednesday.

"(Afterward) we told our team that unfortunately we let an opportunity slip away where we could have wrapped up a fourth seed," third-year UH coach Dana Takahara-Dias said in a postgame phone interview. "We did not take advantage of the opportunity that was before us, so now we will have to regroup and salvage and bounce back from this game. … In the WAC tournament, any team on any given day can win."

The team departs for Las Vegas today and has two days of practice, leaving time to remedy a pattern of sluggish first halves.

"They were ready to play with their senior night," Takahara-Dias said of Idaho. "They just shot extremely well and we did not defend that as effectively as we wanted to."

The Wahine shot 8-for-31 (25.8 percent) in the first half to UI’s 17-for-33 (51.5 percent), leading to a 46-21 halftime deficit.

"We had the lead up until the 12-minute mark, and we hit a stretch where we could not find the bottom end of the basket," Takahara-Dias said. "And they went on a 4-to-31-point run. And that’s where the game was lost, at that moment."

Breanna Arbuckle and Alissa Campanero led UH with 11 points apiece.

Guard Stacey Barr came off the UI bench to score 23 points in 21 minutes, hitting five of nine 3-point attempts. Forward Alissa Charlston added 15 points and nine rebounds.

The Vandals (11-19, 6-8) completed the home-and-home sweep of UH and earned a date with San Jose State in the 4-5 matchup.

UI trailed after the opening minutes, but hit eight of 12 3-point attempts in the first half, and went 11-for-21 for the game. In contrast, the Wahine connected on only three of 17 long-range shots.

UH sophomore guard Kanisha Bello, a UI transfer, went 2-for-7 against her former team, finishing with four points and five rebounds off the bench.