Monday, January 10, 2000
Wahine up to speed
By Al Chase
quickly after layoff
Star-BulletinThe University of Hawaii women's basketball team had certain objectives in mind coming off a 16-day break.
The first priority was defense in Saturday night's Western Athletic Conference opener against undermanned Texas-El Paso.
"You can be off for 30 days, but still come out and play defense with intensity," UH head coach Vince Goo said.
The Wahine did, limiting the Miners (3-10) to just 13 first-half points, all by freshman forward Amy Pack, who finished with a game-high 24 points.
The holiday layoff did affect the Wahine's offense early, but by halftime they were shooting 48 percent from the field and the only question left was how many points Hawaii would score.
The UH coaches knew the timing on offense would be off and understood there would be rough edges for a few minutes.
The 91-55 victory before the season's largest crowd (1,256) at the Stan Sheriff Center gave Goo the opportunity to play everyone.
"We've got a tough road trip coming up and that's a whole new environment. This was a good springboard for us," said Raylene Howard, who led UH with 18 points and seven assists."
"I think we stayed focused and let the offense come to us," said point guard Kyla Evers.
Goo wanted concentration and intensity from his players for 40 minutes and got it.
The Wahine made 53 percent of their field goal attempts. They enjoyed their best 3-point shooting night of the season hitting 10-of-17 (59 percent).
"Obviously the level of ability is going to be a lot greater at SMU and TCU, but I think the lesson we can learn is if you play within yourself and play under control at your pace, you can have a good ball game and have some good stats," Goo said.
"I was really happy with our passing, not just our perimeter people but our post people kicking it back out. We went inside, outside.
"We played with composure. We need to do that in any ball game, especially on the road."
Hawaii stuck to a simple game plan, using just two sets on offense and one of defense.
The Miners did get their offense untracked in the second half, but Goo was pleased the Wahine did not allow UTEP any big scoring runs.
WAC opponents receive league game tapes so it limited what the Southern Methodist and Texas Christian staffs see as they prepare for the UH visit Thursday and Saturday, respectively.
"We focused on what we had to do, not the quality of the other team. I think we learned our lesson with Fairfield," senior forward Hedy Liu said.
Kylie Galloway had 15 points, Kate McMeeken-Ruscoe had a career high 10 points including three consecutive 3-pointers .
Post players Christen Roper and Dainora Puida each scored 10 points.
WAC Women
Conference Overall Team W L Pct. W L Pct Hawaii 1 0 1.000 9 4 .692 Tulsa 1 0 1.000 5 6 .455 Rice 0 0 .000 8 3 .727 SMU 0 0 .000 7 5 .583 Fresno St. 0 0 .000 7 6 .538 SJSU 0 0 .000 2 10 .166 TCU 0 1 .000 9 7 .563 UTEP 0 1 .000 3 10 .231Saturday's resultsHawaii 91, Texas-El Paso 55
Tulsa 68, Texas Christian 55
Southern Methodist 73, North Texas 58
St. Mary's 67, Fresno State 48Today's game
Colorado State at Tulsa
Tomorrow's games
Fresno State at Cal Poly
Rice at MaineThursday's games
Hawaii at Southern Methodist
San Jose State at Texas ChristianSaturday's games
Hawaii at Texas Christian
San Jose State at Southern Methodist
Rice at Tulsa
Fresno State at Texas-El Paso
http://uhathletics.hawaii.edu
