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Kallin Spiller had done the math.
A graduate of Columbia now enrolled in the University of Hawaii’s Shidler College of Business, Spiller took the time to add up the gap separating her appearances in a regular-season college basketball game.
“It was 675 days,” the Rainbow Wahine forward said. “I went back and looked.”
As a transfer from Seattle University, Spiller sat out the 2018-19 season at Columbia then appeared in 11 games for the Lions the following year, the last coming against Mercer on Jan. 4, 2020.
The Ivy League canceled the 2020-21 season for all sports due to the pandemic, wiping out what might have been Spiller’s senior season. She signed with UH as a graduate transfer and last week’s season-opening road trip marked the end of an extended pause on her basketball career.
“It was amazing to be back on the floor, especially with these teammates,” Spiller said Wednesday. “I’ve loved my time in Hawaii so far and so excited about what Hawaii basketball is and what it’s going to be this season.
“I just felt very thankful for the opportunity to be able to come back out, represent the Aloha State and get the chance to do something I really didn’t think I’d get to do again.”
Spiller’s numbers were among the bright spots in an otherwise rough road trip for the Rainbow Wahine (0-2). She will make her regular-season home debut when UH hosts the Bank of Hawaii Classic starting Friday at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
UH faces Portland (2-1) of the West Coast Conference on Friday and Big Sky member Portland State (2-0) on Sunday.
The 6-foot-3 Spiller opened her UH career by making all five of her field-goal attempts in an 11-point, eight-rebound performance in UH’s 86-53 loss at San Diego on Nov. 9.
Two nights later at Southern Cal, she led the Wahine with 14 points on 6-for-11 shooting and 10 rebounds in the seventh double-double of her career going back to her freshman year at Seattle in the 2017-18 season.
“Kallin was not a surprise in an, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t know she could do this,’” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “But I was surprised she could do it so early in the season.
“She didn’t back down from their size and their physicality, she went right at them. I thought she did a great job of showing the bag of tricks she has offensively with being able to step out away from the basket with her turn-around jumper and being able to have some bully moves and be physical.
“Defensively she got on the boards for us and did a really nice job.”
UH trailed by nine at halftime against USC before the Trojans ran away late in the third quarter and throughout the fourth as the Wahine went cold in a 90-50 defeat.
Spiller and Beeman noted the game was the first experience facing a team from a Power-Five conference for a sizable chunk of the UH roster. UH’s schedule last season was limited to games against Hawaii Pacific and Hawaii Hilo followed by the Big West schedule.
“At the beginning of the USC game we really showed great potential,” Spiller said. “We played together, we executed, we were able to defend them. So it was really exciting to see and to learn what we are capable of as a team.
“Consistency is the next step and I think that comes with experience. Continuing to come together and fight together for the whole four quarters is definitely our next step, because we have those moments and it’s just piecing together more and more of those moments to create a complete game.”
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Bank of Hawaii Classic
At SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center
>> When: Friday and Sunday
>> TV: UH games on Spectrum Sports
>> Radio: UH games on 1420-AM/92.7-FM
>> Schedule: Friday—Prairie View A&M vs. Portland State, 4:30 p.m.; Portland vs. Hawaii, 7 p.m. Sunday—Prairie View A&M, 2:30 p.m.; Portland State vs. Hawaii, 5 p.m.
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