Even after a hot shooting night, Briana Harris didn’t expect any slack from her coach.
Quite the opposite actually … and by her request.
Harris drained three 3-pointers in a 19-point, nine-rebound performance in the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team’s loss to Washington State (5-0) on Sunday and Laura Beeman’s phone buzzed on Monday with a text from the Rainbow Wahine junior.
“She said, ‘Coach, please don’t let me get complacent. Please make me work hard,’ ” Beeman said.
Since Harris arrived on campus, Beeman said she has “probably been harder on Bre Harris than any other player probably since I’ve been here.”
Tough love on and off the court developed a deeper connection between coach and point guard and Beeman noted the jump in Harris’ maturity coming into this season. A regular contributor off the bench her first two years in the program, Harris was given the reins of the UH attack.
“Bre and I have a tremendous relationship and I never thought her freshman year we would have the relationship we do her junior year,” Beeman said. “But she’s a special kid and she has taken the lumps and bumps and bruises and turned them into a very good situation for her.”
Coming off the loss to Washington State, UH (3-1) faces a challenging weekend in the three-day Waikiki Beach Marriott Rainbow Wahine Shootout. The tournament opens today with second-ranked South Carolina (4-0) taking on No. 16 Arizona State (1-1) at 2:30. UH faces CSU Bakersfield (1-2) at 5.
The Rainbow Wahine face Arizona State at 4 p.m. Saturday and South Carolina at 5 p.m. Sunday.
Just as the schedule will test the Wahine this weekend, Beeman has challenged Harris throughout her career in Manoa.
“It’s been since day one. There were some habits we had to revisit,” Beeman said. “It was a situation where Bre and I battled head to head for a while.”
Harris worked through the process to eventually not only accept admonition, but embrace it.
“It helped me focus on the game a little bit better. It helped me reach goals I wanted to reach. She’s still going to push me to be the best I can be,” Harris said.
After last week’s tournament, Harris reached out to Beeman, asking her coach to keep her on task.
“She said, ‘OK I’m going to push you, but don’t get discouraged. Just know you are doing OK, but I’m still going to be hard on you because that’s my job and I want you to be better,’ ” said Harris, adding that Beeman is quick to offer positive motivation as well.
Harris signed with UH as a high-scoring point guard at St. Monica Catholic High School in Santa Monica, Calif., where she poured in a school-record 1,424 points. Now running the point at UH, Harris’ role is to get the ball to the best scoring option. While her first priority is finding an open teammate, at times that means picking herself.
Harris ended last season by draining five 3-pointers in six attempts in a career-best 24-point night in UH’s WNIT loss at Saint Mary’s. She helped keep UH within reach of Washington State on Sunday and enters the Rainbow Wahine shootout averaging 9.5 points and 5.8 rebounds per game.
Leading into the Rainbow Wahine Shootout, cutting down on turnovers has been an emphasis for Harris and the Wahine, who average 20.5 per game. Beeman expects to see pressure from UH’s three opponents this weekend.
Nationally ranked visitors to the Stan Sheriff Center have been a staple of UH’s nonconference schedules and ”I applaud Coach Beeman for scheduling those games,” Harris said, “because it prepares us.”