Somehow two double-byes turned into double bye-bye.
Maybe this will make the University of Hawaii women’s basketball team and its fans feel a little better: The squad that ousted the Wahine from the Big West Tournament went on to win it, unlike last year’s sadly similar situation.
Maybe not. The more human-nature reaction is destination envy.
While UC San Diego makes plans for the NCAA Tournament, UH — which won the conference regular-season title and was top seed in the Big West tourney — has to settle for the women’s version of the NIT, again.
The Wahine lost heartbreakingly on the way to the dance, despite No. 1-seed status for the second year in a row. This comes after getting to the NCAAs in 2022 and 2023.
A day after upsetting UH 51-49 in a semifinal, UC San Diego knocked off UC Davis 75-66 in Saturday’s final, scoring the first eight points and leading all the way.
The Wahine were at their worst (the first half), their best (the first 19 minutes, 59 seconds of the second half), and their most unfortunate (the final second) Friday against the Tritons.
Hawaii trailed by 27 in the second quarter, tied it with 1:20 left by scoring 20 of the first 22 points in the fourth quarter, and lost when UCSD’s Sumayah Sugapong made a layup with less than a second left on the clock.
Sugapong’s game-high 17 points included all four scored by the Tritons in the fourth quarter dominated by UH, except for the final seconds.
The Friday morning roller-coaster ride left a lot to ponder.
>> One of my least favorite cliches is that one about it being hard to beat a team a third time. In the past few days, all over the country, college basketball teams played each other for the third time this season, and many made it 3-0 against an opponent.
The Wahine are among those that did not. They swept the Tritons in the regular season: 65-63 at LaJolla, Calif., on Jan. 30 and 49-44 at home on Feb. 22. These were the eighth and the last victories of UH’s 14-game winning streak.
You can rarely call a two-point game closer than the score indicated. But that win at UCSD went to overtime because of a missed Tritons layup at the end of regulation by — I’ll give you a second or two to guess — yeah, Sugapong, who missed in the lane with two seconds left. Hawaii won despite 22 turnovers.
>> We all usually think of the double-bye into the conference tournament semifinals as a deserved reward for excellence during the regular season. Instead of three or four wins in as many days, you just need two to hoist the trophy and the invitation.
Hawaii waited five days between games. That’s probably not enough to tip the scales in any rest vs. rust equation, especially when you have to travel a lot farther than everyone else.
But during Friday’s game, UH student James Taitague reminded me about the possible advantages of playing, and of course, winning, a Thursday quarterfinal. You get the very recent muscle memory of meaningful shots going through the hoop in your most meaningful game of the year — at the same court where you will play your new most meaningful game the next day. Perhaps that’s part of why UCSD got off to a 5-0 lead while UH missed its first six shots.
The Tritons came off a hard-fought 59-54 win against Cal Poly the day before. In that game, Sugapong scored 29 points, including a baseline jumper to give UC San Diego its first lead with just 1:09 left. She made two free throws in the final 20 seconds to clinch it.
“I think you see it in other sports a lot, too,” Taitague said. “Sometimes it helps your momentum and cohesion to keep playing.”
Hawaii’s last game before Friday’s loss at what was then called the Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nev., was a 51-48 loss to UC Davis in the semifinals of the 2024 tournament. That does not conjure pleasant memories, muscle or otherwise.
UH also had a double-bye for being the regular-season champion last year. As No. 5 seed, UC Davis had to win twice in two days to get its shot at No. 1 seed UH.
>> UCSD’s run of three wins in three days is even more impressive because of how coach Heidi VanDerveer uses the bench — actually, doesn’t use it. Three starters played all 40 minutes against UH and a fourth played 39. The starters slacked off the day before in the quarters, playing 39, 38, 36, 35 and 25 minutes. In Saturday’s final, three of the starters combined for six minutes off the floor.
Hawaii’s Laura Beeman does it a different way. Nine players got 10 minutes or more Friday, in a game where every second was meaningful. This substitution pattern is not unusual for this team. One of UH’s strengths is its depth, and is a big factor in why the Wahine won so many games this season when they were behind at halftime — and nearly pulled off the biggest comeback in program history Friday.
The Wahine scored the first seven points after the break to cut into the 23-point halftime deficit but still trailed by 18 to start the fourth quarter.
Bench players scored 12 of UH’s 20 fourth-quarter points, and fresh Hawaii legs factored into UCSD’s eight fourth-quarter turnovers. Fast-break layups by reserves Jade Peacock and Jovi Lefotu and Lily Wahinekapu’s two 3-pointers made what looked impossible a few minutes earlier quite possible.
Brooklyn Rewers, who played 15 minutes off the bench, scored eight of her 10 points in the fourth quarter. Her free throw to tie it with 1:20 left turned that possible into probable, at least for anyone who could see which way the momentum arrow was pointed.
Unfortunately for UH, Big Mo never promises to stick around. And a player who missed a game-winning layup in January made one in March.
