Some uncertainty still surrounding Wahine as Big West play begins

From a record standpoint, the Hawaii women’s basketball team is on par with where it has been during its past two Big West championship winning seasons.

Ask head coach Laura Beeman about where her team is heading into conference play and the answer is it’s a bit of an unknown.

The Rainbow Wahine (3-6) will play for just the third time in December when they visit Cal State Fullerton(5-6, 1-0) on Saturday to open defense of their back-to-back conference titles.

The bulk of Hawaii’s nonconference schedule came during a stretch of five home games in 10 days in November that ended with a 17-point loss to Washington, which is the first team outside this week’s Associated Press Top 25.

In the 33 days since that loss to UW, UH has played twice.

“This is a little bit more drastic (than in previous years),” Beeman said. “I don’t like having such a big break. The good thing is we’ve been a little banged up and it’s given the girls a chance to get healthy.”

Leading scorer Imani Perez missed UH’s 85-46 loss to No. 2 UCLA last week, leaving junior MeiLani McBee as the only player to start every game for UH this season.

Hawaii held practices in two states the day after Christmas as the players who came home following the loss at Stanford practiced at UH while the players who stayed on the mainland met up early in Fullerton.

They all came together to practice Wednesday, Thursday and again today as they prepare to start playing a more steady schedule.

UH has one of its two conference byes this week and plays just once, on Saturday, before getting into the normal two-game-a-week routine.

“I think we’re really well-rounded, but until we get into the nuts and bolts of conference, I’m not really going to know,” Beeman said. “Right now I think the only team that can beat Hawaii is Hawaii, but I think in a little bit more time with a few more games we will really see if that statement is true.”

UH has won its past two conference openers after starting 1-8 in Beeman’s first nine seasons.

Heading into the start of conference play on Thursday, only UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara had records over .500.

The Anteaters (6-4) hold the conference’s best NCAA Net ranking at No. 124. Hawaii’s No. 182 ranking is fifth in the conference.

“Overall preseason for the Big West wasn’t great. I don’t think any team had a standout preseason,” Beeman said. “I do think as conference goes on teams will get better. That seems to be the nature of the Big West. There’s a lot of diversity in styles with teams that play really fast, some teams play really slow, some teams are big and pound it inside, some shoot the 3 — a lot of diversity.”

UH has won the past eight matchups against the Titans, including a double-overtime victory in the quarterfinals of the Big West Tournament in March.

The Titans return the bulk of their starting lineup from last season, including center Ashlee Lewis, who finished with 22 points and nine rebounds in the tournament loss.

Senior Gabi Vidmar leads the team in scoring at 12.5 points per game.

“They play hard. They play really, really hard.” Beeman said. “They always have really good guard play. They’ve got some young ladies with the ability to score at all three levels and they have a very good post presence in Ashlee Lewis, who is a big body and has experience playing in some big games.”

Hawaii has nine players averaging double figures in minutes per game. Guard Daejah Phillips, who started for the first time in seven games against UCLA, has scored double figures in five of the past six games and entered Thursday tied for first in the Big West with 38 made free throws.

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Rainbow Wahine Basketball

Who: Hawaii (3-6, 0-0 Big West) vs. Cal State Fullerton (4-6, 0-0)

Where: Titan Gym, Fullerton, Calif.

When: Saturday, Noon

Live stream: ESPN+

Radio: None