HONOLULU — When the bottom fell out in the second half against Washington, Laura Beeman had a hunch she knew why.
The Hawaii women’s basketball team hung with the unbeaten Huskies of the Pac-12 for most of the first three quarters of the Rainbow Wahine Showdown finale at the Stan Sheriff Center on Sunday. But with a series of wide-open looks and superior execution, UW put away UH, 58-41, to claim the four-team tournament title.
By the time Beeman arrived at the arena’s press conference room, a lengthy postgame locker room session with her team fresh in mind, the 12th-year coach was convinced: It was a matter of conditioning.
“We gotta get in better shape, gotta get some rest on these legs,” Beeman said. “Offensively, we gotta figure out why we break down so much. I think when we get physically fatigued, it also affects our brains a little bit (on defense). But we’re going to be OK. I’m proud of this group and the way they fight.”
UH completed its November schedule at 2-5 with 32% shooting from the field. The early-season struggles are not unlike what the Wahine endured the last two years — they were 2-7 in pre-conference play in 2022-23 and 3-6 in 2021-22 — and they won the BWC tournament both times.
But a cluster of games in the first leg of the season proved to be a little too intensive this year, Beeman said.
Spanning its Nov. 8 opener at Stanford through Sunday’s contest, UH played seven games in 18 days. In contrast, UH has just two games in the 33-day period starting the day after the UW game until the start of conference play Dec. 30: Sunday against San Jose State and Dec. 21 at UCLA.
Beeman said she’d reexamine the team’s scheduling distribution in November and December for future years, though she acknowledged it is not a simple matter with many December dates in the Sheriff unavailable for various reasons.
“I think we have to take a look at, can we get off island, can we spread some things out and have more games here,” Beeman said. “It’s a scheduling nightmare between final exams here, final exams elsewhere, what we do with volleyball and men’s basketball, and graduation and robotics and karate and all those kinds of things.”
The team could not practice intensively over the last few weeks because of its busy schedule, limiting itself to scout team preparation, the coach said, which had a negative effect on player conditioning.
“We’re not in the shape we need to be, but we also have legs that are just dead,” she said. “(We have) injuries, little ones that we have to get under control before we hit UCLA, then hit conference.”
UH was within 25-23 of UW at halftime Sunday. It was still within three points, with three minutes left in the third quarter.
“We knew it was going to be a dogfight,” said UH wing MeiLani McBee, who scored a team-high 12 points, including back-to-back 3-point hits to begin the game. “I think they came out a little stronger than we did (after halftime) and … it was a snowball effect.”
Huskies forward Dalayah Daniels scored inside repeatedly down the stretch and finished with 19 points, nine rebounds and two blocks. She and teammates Hannah Stines and Lauren Schwartz made the all-tournament team after the Huskies (7-0) swept UH, Air Force and Idaho State, which all went 1-2 over the weekend. Schwartz was the MVP.
UH guard Daejah Phillips was UH’s lone representative on the all-tournament team after averaging 8.7 points in the three games.
Sunday’s 2 p.m. game against SJSU (4-4) of the Mountain West completes a six-game homestand.
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.