Rainbow Wahine happy to be home

After playing two games on BYU Hawaii’s home court last week, the University of Hawaii Rainbow Wahine basketball team welcomes the Seasiders to the Stan Sheriff Center today for an exhibition game.

The Wahine (4-5) make their final home appearance of 2015 in the exhibition — which breaks up a 16-day gap between regular-season games — looking to bounce back from losses to BYU and Texas A&M in the Tom Weston Classic in Laie.

The game won’t count as an opportunity to break a four-game losing streak but will give the Wahine a chance to work through some of the issues that arose in a five-game run that included three losses to nationally ranked opponents.

“It’s always a process, it’s always an adjustment,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “It’s always trying to figure out what you’re doing right and growing on that and what you’re doing wrong and fixing it.

“I really feel like that’s where we are right now. We hit a bump in the road and we have to get back to good leadership and good work ethic and fixing some of the problems that we have which are very, very fixable.”

Beeman also plans to give the UH freshman a longer look in the game. Leah Salanoa gave UH a spark late in a 67-56 loss to BYU with three 3-pointers and Olivia Crawford is averaging 13 minutes in seven appearances.

“I’d like to get them out on the court and if I need to mix up the lineup a little bit I’m going to, but I really want to give some of them playing time for confidence and experience,” Beeman said.

BYUH makes the drive to Manoa at 3-2 and lost to BYU 85-40 last week. Guard Valerie Nawahine, a transfer from Utah, leads the Seasiders with 13.6 points per game and has made a team-high 11 3-pointers in 31 attempts. Senior guard Jiahan Cui is next at 12.4 ppg.

UH resumes the regular season Dec. 20 at Sacramento State. The Wahine also play San Jose State and CSU Bakersfield on the road before returning to the Sheriff Center against Penn on Jan. 2.