Coached by Vince Goo, University of Hawaii women’s basketball enjoyed success before the 1994 opening of the on-campus arena. It continued at what was then called the Special Events Arena. In six of the first eight years there the Wahine won more than 20 games and made the postseason.

“Before, whenever we had recruits in town and they asked where we played our games, it was aw shucks, we gotta go over to Klum,” Goo said. “Then we got the arena and the first thing we did was take them there.”

In 1998, the Wahine went 24-4 and tied for the program’s longest winning streak of 19 games. Senior night at the arena for Brandy Ashby, Liisa Kotilainen, Destree Wautlet, and all-time Wahine great Nani Cockett from Aiea and Kamehameha Schools came on Feb. 14.

A crowd of 6,004 showed up to see the 16th-ranked team in the country play SMU. It remains the largest gathering for a stand-alone UH women’s basketball game.

“It was electric, the lower bowl filled,” Goo said. “Forever, we were always telling people to come on out, we’ve got a pretty good team. This time they came.”

They were not disappointed.

Cockett caught an elbow in her right eye early on, but the program’s second all-time leading scorer posted 20 points and blocked two shots as UH won 73-69 and finished the season 17-1 at home sweet dome.

Sophomore Raylene Howard also scored 20 as

UH improved to 22-1 overall. It was one of Hawaii’s 12 wins without a loss in the WAC regular season.

“The best player out of Hawaii. A lot of coaches were glad to she was finally graduating,” Goo said of Cockett, who had played at UH since 1993.

“My first year was at Klum while they were building the arena,” said Cockett, who then missed most of UH’s first season at the new venue with a knee injury. With her and Tania Brunton both out, Hawaii went 6-20. “The next year we had a great turnaround and made NCAAs. The fans were amazing and we built on it year after year.”

The 1997-98 team later lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament. But the last thing the home fans saw in person was a victory.

“We wanted to make it special,” said junior point guard BJ Itoman, who scored 13 points with 10 rebounds, six assists and four steals. “We wanted to go out with a win for the crowd, as well as for our seniors.”

The largest crowd before that was 4,409 a week prior. 

“Eight years ago we had crowds of 150 to 200 people,” Goo said then. “The program has really grown. We’re on the brink of perhaps being the best team we’ve ever had.”

Three years later, UH hosted and won three WNIT games, before going to New Mexico and losing in the semifinals.

‘We owe everything to our administration, which at that time was Marilyn (Moniz-Kaho’ohanohano) and Hugh (Yoshida),” Goo said. “They put in a bid with a pretty good guarantee and we got to host those games.”