UC Davis cancels Saturday’s game with Rainbow Wahine

The University of Hawaii women’s basketball team’s game at UC Davis on Saturday has been canceled due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols within the Aggies program, the schools announced on Tuesday.

UC Riverside paused activity on Dec. 23 and canceled its game with UH originally scheduled for Thursday. The Big West games will not be rescheduled and will be declared a “no contest.”

The cancellations wiped out what was to be UH’s opening road trip of the conference season. UH is now scheduled to open the Big West season on Jan. 6 against Long Beach State at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. The Wahine also face Cal State Fullerton on Jan. 8 in the homestand.

“Am I surprised? No. Is it disappointing? Absolutely,” UH coach Laura Beeman said. “You always want to open up conference and we were excited to get going. But at this point you re-calibrate, get everyone back here, and look at the calendar and figure out what kind of practices make sense and try to figure out when you’re going to play your next opponent.

“It’s frustrating but you can’t control it, so you have your moment of frustration then you have to move on.”

The Wahine dispersed for Christmas weekend following a loss at UNLV on Dec. 21 and were scheduled to reconvene in California this week. Instead, Beeman said the school is working on getting the players back to Hawaii amid the various travel challenges.

“A little bit of logistical craziness, but there’s good people working on it so we’ll just make it happen,” Beeman said.

“As long as they’re safe and healthy we’ll take them back when we can and we’ll get on the court as soon as we can.”

Cancellations continue to sweep through the Big West women’s basketball schedule. UC Santa Barbara also canceled its games with UC San Diego and UC Irvine this week. Cal State Northridge announced on Tuesday that the program has paused all activities and canceled this week’s games, also with UC Irvine and UC San Diego. Two games — CSU Bakersfield at Cal State Fullerton and Cal Poly at Long Beach State — remain among the five originally scheduled for Thursday.

The Big West announced last week that games impacted by COVID-19 will be regarded as a “no contest” rather than a forfeit and seeding for the conference tournament will be determined by Big West winning percentage.