Hawaii women's basketball in search of chemistry during Maui Classic stopover – Spectrum News

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HONOLULU — It’s not a full-fledged road trip, and it’s not a couple of home games. The Hawaii women’s basketball team will try to find the sweet spot in between in Upcountry Maui this weekend.
UH (5-5) wraps up nonconference play against two capable mid-major programs in Oregon State’s annual Maui Classic: Liberty (6-3) at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Montana State (6-3) at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
Both games are in Seabury Hall’s gym in Makawao.
“It’s a road trip because we’re not in the Stan Sheriff, but anytime we can go to a Neighbor Island, it’s home,” coach Laura Beeman said Wednesday. “Some of these kids are so excited to go see part of our state that they’ve never seen.”
The Rainbow Wahine actually visited the Valley Isle in the 2024-25 preseason to play Chaminade at Kamehameha-Maui’s gym in Pukalani. But this will be a longer stay with a much different team.
With its youthful, newcomer-heavy roster, preseason Big West favorite UH is still attempting to discover the chemistry that helped it to the last two BWC regular-season championships.
UH went winless in its Rainbow Wahine Showdown tournament in Thanksgiving week against three mid-major foes and dropped both games of the Big West “Bold Week” of early December in excruciating fashion.
It snapped its five-game losing streak a week ago against Division II sibling Hawaii Hilo, but the Wahine struggled to put the Vulcans away; UH committed 19 turnovers to UHH’s seven.
The common denominator has been a propensity to hand the ball to opponents and give up rebounds at inopportune moments. Over the losing streak, UH committed 111 turnovers, or 22.2 per game.
UH ranks 350^th of 359 Division I teams in turnover margin at minus-6.7 per game and 311th at 20.1 turnovers per game.
On the positive side, the Wahine welcomed fourth-year junior guard Jovi Lefotu back to the lineup from a knee injury. Lefotu came off the bench at UC Davis and Cal State Fullerton and started against UHH, contributing eight points and four rebounds in the last.
“We’ve had teams in the past where we can coach to a scout (preparing for opponents) and you can get away with some things. This young team, it fell apart,” Beeman said. “So we’ve had four, five really good days of practices. I think the intensity needed and did go up. Some of the areas of slippage with boards and turnovers we’ve put a lot of focus on that. Now’s the time to transfer it over to a really good Liberty and Montana State team this weekend.”
Sixty-two percent of UH’s scoring has come from the team’s eight newcomers, led by freshman guard Bailey Flavell at 14 points per game.
Senior forward Imani Perez, the team’s leading rebounder at 6.8 per contest, said all of the team’s newcomers came in as strong players. It’s just a matter of getting everyone to work together.
An island hop could provide some needed bonding time.
“I don’t get to go to other islands much so this is kind of fun, to get to play the sport that you love and with the team,” Perez said. “Let the younger ones experience a different island as well. But we’re there for the end goal of, it’s business. At the end of the day we’re there to play a game and to win.”
Oregon State has held its Maui Classic in conjunction with Vertical Sports Maui every season (except during COVID in 2020) since 2015. The four-team event moved from the Lahaina Civic Center to the South Maui Gymnasium in Kihei in 2022, and to Seabury Hall in Makawao in 2023.
The games at Seabury have generally attracted a few hundred visitors.
Beeman said she and associate head coach Alex Delanian have known OSU coach Scott Rueck for some time and have eyed the Maui Classic in the past, but always had a conflict.
“Everything just kind of aligned,” Beeman said of joining the field this year.
UH will not play OSU; the Beavers will play Liberty and MSU on reverse days as UH.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.

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