Schedules pose challenges for both UH hoops teams

The University of Hawaii women’s basketball team is rebuilding this season, but its schedule definitely isn’t.

It is still loaded.

The Rainbow Wahine will play three teams that finished last season in the Top 25 — No. 3 South Carolina (30-2), No. 9 Arizona State (27-5) and No. 21 Texas A&M (23-9) — in the first month of the season.

In one particularly grueling 13-game stretch, they will play six games against teams that had a combined 141-47 record.

Presumably the New York Liberty and other WNBA competition were unavailable during that period.

“Hey, we tried,” coach Laura Beeman deadpanned.

Overall, nine of UH’s 13 nonconference opponents had winning records last season, and there are so far no regular-season games against Division II opponents.

The Rainbow Wahine will also play five road games and two neutral-site contests before opening the Big West Conference season on Jan. 7 at Long Beach State.

In a pre- and post- Christmas stretch that takes them into conference, the Rainbow Wahine will play seven of 10 games on the road.

So much for easing into the 2015-16 season while the Rainbow Wahine seek to replace three starters plus their spark plug, Shawna Lei Kuehu, from a 23-9 team.

Beeman’s scheduling philosophy is both arduous and time tested. “Our preseason has to prepare us for the conference, and that’s what we’re always looking for,” Beeman said.

Many years UH’s strength of schedule is ranked in the top 20 when it emerges from the nonconference season. Last year UH finished 135th among 349 Division I schools.

Playing a high-caliber nonconference schedule hasn’t been easy on the Rainbow Wahine’s record and is unlikely to be this season either. But for all the bumps, it has come with something of a postseason insurance policy. With a strong strength of schedule, the Rainbow Wahine have qualified for the past three Women’s National Invitational Tournaments.

“Our goal is to not be in the WNIT,” Beeman said. “I’m tired of that, but that is the nature of the beast when you get only one team from your conference in the (NCAA) tournament if you don’t win the conference. So it is a balancing act.”

Meanwhile, we are left to see what kind of balance the Rainbow Warriors seek to strike in their first season under Eran Ganot with much of last season’s 22-13 team returning. While season tickets went on sale for both men and women Monday, the Rainbow Warriors have yet to announce their secrecy-shrouded schedule.

Indications are that whatever emerges will be a home-heavy lineup now that road games with San Diego State and California in the previously contracted Continental Tire Las Vegas Invitational have been bought out. A trip to Texas Tech is said to still be in the works.

The looming question is: How — and with whom — will the Rainbow Warriors fill in the pukas?

If they need any inspiration on that count, the Rainbow Wahine set a pretty good example.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.