Rainbow Wahine draw California in WBIT

Hawaii women’s basketball coach Laura Beeman kept it real Sunday after her team was selected to play at California in the opening round of the inaugural Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament on Thursday.

The Rainbow Wahine (20-10) earned an automatic berth in the 32-team field that is funded by the NCAA and meant for the 32 best teams who didn’t make the 64-team NCAA Women’s Tournament by winning the regular season in the Big West.

Two days after they were upset in the BWC semifinals, ending their dreams of a third-straight NCAA Tournament appearance, Beeman felt her team can be both excited to play in the WBIT tournament and still hurting from Friday’s gut-wrenching loss to UC Davis.

“I’m disappointed that we are not in the NCAA Tournament, definitely. We did all of the right stuff all year long and we just picked a bad game to be bad, and we were bad,” Beeman said. “Even if we were to win the whole WBIT, I don’t think you’re going to look back and say, ‘how fun was that.’ The loss of what we were trying to accomplish and the way we went down is going to stick around. You’re broke and you move with it. I don’t think it goes away.”

The challenge will come today when the team gets together for a practice in Henderson, Nev., before leaving for Berkeley, Calif., for Thursday’s 4 p.m. game against the Golden Bears (18-14).

Cal finished eighth in the Pac-12 and advanced to the Pac-12 Tournament quarterfinals before losing to No. 1 seed Stanford, which also beat Hawaii this season.

UH went 0-3 against Pac-12 teams losing on the road by a combined 86 points to the Cardinal and UCLA, which both earned No. 2 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

Hawaii also lost at home to Washington, which finished 10th in the Pac-12 and was eliminated in the first round of the conference tournament by Arizona.

The Huskies are seeded second in one of the four eight-team regions in the WBIT tournament.

“Once we get back on the court, hearing the balls bouncing, and get a little sweat, kind of work through some of the disappointment, some of the unexpected outcome, I think we will be OK,” Beeman said. “I think it’s still going to take a little bit of time. I did challenge them.”

Beeman said if anybody thought they weren’t going to be physically or mentally ready, they would send them back to Hawaii instead of staying on the mainland to play Thursday.

“Obviously nobody accepted that,” Beeman said.

Hawaii was on a season-high seven-game losing streak before losing to the Aggies. UH shot 30.8 % (16-for-52) from the field with starting guards Lily Wahinekapu and Olivia Davies combining to shoot 1-for-21.

Wahinekapu was 4-for-6 from the free-throw line, but missed two with UH trailing by a point with 10 seconds remaining.

Hawaii also lost Daejah Phillips to an ankle injury in the second half.

The Golden Bears represent an opportunity to beat a Pac-12 school in the final year of the conference as it has currently exists.

Ten of the 12 schools will leave for other conferences next season, leaving only Oregon State and Washington State.

“It’s going to feel very weird. I don’t know if it has a chance to come back at some point, but I think it’s going to be really different,” Beeman said. “I think it will be a very different look for college, but I also think we’re already going down a very slippery slope with college athletics. It’s not what it used to be.”

UC Irvine, which defeated UC Davis to win the BWC tournament, was seeded 13th in the NCAA Tournament and will play No. 4 seed Gonzaga in the first round on Friday in Spokane, Wash.

The Rainbow Wahine beat the Anteaters twice in the regular season by a combined 19 points.

“I was surprised. Their NET RPI was, I think, pretty good,” Beeman said. “I thought they were probably going to go 14, so I think 13 was really good for them. Last year we went as a 14 and we were surprised … and for the sake of the conference I hope they do really well.”