Searching for its first win of the season, the Hawaii women’s basketball team begins a six-game homestead — the longest of the season — today against San Francisco in the Bank of Hawaii Classic.
The Rainbow Wahine (0-2) opened the season with losses at Stanford and Santa Clara last week.
The Cardinal, ranked 15th last week, jumped to No. 6 in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 after beating then-No. 9 Indiana by 32 points on Sunday.
UH played without junior point guard Lily Wahinekapu against the Broncos three days later and couldn’t overcome a slow start in which it fell behind 14 in the first quarter before losing by 11.
“Stanford’s really good and we need Lily to be successful on the court, especially early on,” Hawaii coach Laura Beeman said Wednesday. “It’s early, nobody is breaking glass yet, so we’re going to be OK.”
It remains to be seen whether Wahinekapu will be available for today’s home opener against the Dons (1-1), but UH did show it has the ability to work the ball inside on offense, with Michigan State transfer Brooklyn Rewers coming off a 19-point, 12-rebound double-double against Santa Clara.
Rewers and fellow 6-foot-4 post Imani Perez are two of UH’s three leading scorers after the first two games.
“My first two years I didn’t really do much (at Michigan State), so just kind of coming into myself as a basketball player and kind of seeing how things are again just feels good again,” Rewers said. “Definitely seeing how the bigs (at Stanford) are just very aggressive and use their bodies and do everything said to me like, OK, maybe I need to do a little bit more and be more aggressive.”
Today’s game is at 2:30 p.m. before the UH women’s volleyball team plays UC San Diego at 7.
“I wish we had a prime-time game, but we are excited to be back home,” Beeman said. “Nice to be in your own bed, on your own floor, shooting your own basketballs. That Sunday game, hopefully people come out to support us.”
Hawaii hasn’t won a home opener since 2019 against San Diego State.
USF was voted seventh in the West Coast Conference preseason poll and returns All-WCC preseason team selection Jasmine Gayles, who scored 30 points in the Dons’ season opener against UC Santa Barbara.
The Vandals are led in scoring by guard Kennedy Johnson, who transferred from UC Santa Barbara.
“Pace, pace and more pace. They are trying to score in the first seven, eight seconds of the clock,” Beeman said of USF. “That is going to be challenging for us. We’ve worked the last couple of days with getting up and down the floor and being able to play offense without turning it over, getting back on defense to stop people and not getting in foul trouble.”
Guard Daejah Phillips, who started each of the first two games, played only nine minutes against Santa Clara before fouling out.
Wing MeiLani McBee, who finished with 16 points against the Broncos, shot 66.7% (6-for-9) from 3-point range in the first two games and is the team’s second-leading scorer at 11 points per game.
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TODAY
>> Idaho (1-1) vs. Cal State Fullerton (1-1), noon
>> Hawaii (0-2) vs. San Francisco (1-2), 2:30 p.m.
SUNDAY
>> San Francisco vs. Cal State Fullerton, 2:30 p.m.
>> Hawaii vs. Idaho, 5 pm.
TV: Spectrum Sports (Ch. 1016, Sunday only)
Radio: KKEA, 1420-AM / 97.5-FM
