HONOLULU — The net cutting, the trip to the NCAA tournament, the honors from the mayor at Honolulu Hale.
None of it ever happened.
That’s what coach Laura Beeman is impressing upon her defending Big West champion Rainbow Wahine heading into the 2022-23 season, for which Hawaii held its first full practice on Tuesday at the Stan Sheriff Center.
UH has six weeks to prepare for its Nov. 7 game at Oregon State, its opener to a fairly tough nonconference schedule.
“This is the time when you want a memory at certain times, and then you absolutely don’t want it conscious at other times,” Beeman said. “I don’t want them to remember that we’re champions. I want them to play like we’re not, I want them to work like we’re not.”
She paused and made an allowance.
“When the experience needed to win ballgames comes in, then I want them to remember that we’re champions. So, it’s kind of a give and take.”
There is a dichotomy as well when it comes to the makeup of the Wahine roster. On one hand, UH lost Big West Player of the Year Amy Atwell, the breakout star who finally exhausted her eligibility after six seasons and got a cup of coffee in the WNBA this summer.
On the other, the Wahine return nearly every other rotation player from the first team in program history to win both a regular-season conference title and the conference tournament title in the same year. Eleven players are back — point guard Nae Nae Calhoun and center Maeve Donnelly are the exceptions, besides Atwell.
There are some notable additions, led by Iolani School alumnae and sisters Lily Wahinekapu and Jovi Lefotu.
"It's a fresh start," fourth-year sophomore guard Olivia Davies said. "Beeman has done a good job of saying last year is last year and this year is going to be a different year for everybody. And I think that’s a really good outlook to have."
Fresh in the returnees’ minds is the 89-49 loss to second-seeded Baylor in the NCAA first round that brought the banner year to a close at 20-10 for the 15th-seeded Wahine. It was the second time that Beeman, now in her 11th UH season, took a team to the Big Dance.
“We know this team hasn’t accomplished anything yet,” said senior center Kallin Spiller, a 2021-22 captain. “So we want to ride that momentum and I think we worked really hard in the offseason to make sure we’re setting ourselves up to do what we did last season again.”
The mission this time is to put together better nonconference results — UH went 3-6 last year before the sharpshooter Atwell emerged to lead the team to a 13-3 run through the Big West regular season — so that the Wahine give themselves a chance at a better postseason seed.
Without Atwell’s 17.8 points and 6.9 rebounds per game, and single-season program record of 76 3-pointers, it won’t be easy. Beeman pointed out it’s not supposed to be.
Wahinekapu and Lefotu were hard to miss among UH's five newcomers Tuesday. The guards are a year apart; the 5-foot-7 Wahinekapu picked up Big West Freshman of the Year honors at Cal State Fullerton last year in putting up 14.7 points and 3.7 assists per game, while the slightly taller Lefotu was the consensus high school player of the year in leading Iolani to the state crown.
“It means a lot to me,” Wahinekapu said of her fresh start as a Wahine. “I want to represent my home state, my family, my team. It’s not just about me, it’s about everybody else and who I’m rooting for.”
Wahinekapu and Lefotu will compete for time at point guard, where Calhoun split time with returnees Kelsie Imai, Davies and Ashley Thoms in 2021-22.
“You don’t replace Amy Atwell. It’s not just the points, it’s more the gravity that she demanded on the court,” Beeman said. “She really gave us great spacing. So, we’re going to have to find other ways to score. With Lily’s ability to have the ball in her hands, she can score in three different ways. Get other people involved. That will definitely help.”
Beeman said she will split up Wahinekapu and Lefotu at practice whenever possible to foster a competitive, and not deferential, spirit between them.
The UH staff game-planned to get the ball out of Wahinekapu’s hands during two meetings last year with coach Jeff Harada’s Fullerton Titans, both UH wins. Wahinekapu had a huge usage rate and shot 39.8% from the field for the season.
“I just feel like last year, I had to take a big step,” Wahinekapu said. “This year, I can be more (comfortable) in my role as a point guard.”
The other newcomers are in the frontcourt: Meg Jefferson, a 6-3 senior transfer forward from Virginia; Imani Perez, a 6-4 forward from Mullen High in Denver, and Avery Watkins, a 6-foot forward from Kennedy Catholic High in Seattle.
Last year’s second-leading scorer and rebounder, forward Daejah Phillips (10.0 and 5.1), watched Tuesday’s practice from the sidelines.
On staff, there were a few changes over the summer. Four-year assistant Khalilah Mitchell was replaced by De’Audra Brown, who arrived from New Mexico State, and Beeman’s longtime director of operations Teneshia Ruff was replaced by Jason Hill, who was promoted from director of player development. And former Wahine guard Savannah Reier joined the staff in Hill's former role.
Some more photos from Day 1 of practice:
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.