Wahine advance TULSA, Okla. >> Before the semifinals of the Western Athletic Conference women's basketball tournament, Wahine senior Karena Greeny said Hawaii was due to have a solid team performance.
to WAC title game
Greeny scores a team-high
12 points as No. 3 Hawaii routs
No. 2 Rice, 59-36By Grace Wen
gwen@starbulletin.comWas she right.
The third-seeded Rainbow Wahine avenged two conference losses to Rice with a 59-36 rout today at the Reynolds Center, strengthening UH's chances of getting an invitation to the NCAA tournament.
Hawaii (23-6, 14-4) moves into tomorrow's championship game at 9 a.m., facing the winner of the Louisiana Tech-Tulsa semifinal. It is the second year in a row Hawaii is playing in the title game.
"It was nice to have us come back and beat a team like Rice," Hawaii coach Vince Goo said. "Every single game we've had against them has been high-level competition. We have players that wanted to step on the floor tonight and wanted to compete."
Hawaii had its usual defensive tenacity in limiting the Owls to 21.7 (13-for-60) percent shooting. The Wahine forced the Owls to rush shots and crashed the boards when they missed. Hawaii outrebounded Rice, 47-36.
But UH's offensive game made the difference. All five starters scored at least seven points with three in double figures. Greeny led the scoring with 12 points and contributed eight rebounds. Janka Gabrielova led the defensive charge with four steals, and added 11 points and five rebounds. Christen Roper scored 10 points and grabbed six rebounds.
"This was the first game in a long time that we got balanced scoring," Greeny said.
"And defense was probably the best since Fresno. We jumped on them early and we got our confidence. We played aggressive on both ends of the court."
"We just picked a bad time to play really bad," Rice coach Cristy McKinney said.
"They really attacked us, came after us and played like they wanted the game more than we did."
Added Rice's Kara Ligget: "We didn't respond to anything they did at all. The first half or the second half. Urgency is a good kind of panic and we just never had that. We never had that kind of urgency."
Hawaii broke the game open with a 12-2 run to start the second half. The Wahine held a 20-point lead at 39-19 after a trey by Wagner and led by as much as 28.
The Owls never got closer than 23 in the second half when a meaningless 3-pointer by Johnetta Hayes made it 57-34. By then Hawaii had its starters on the bench.
The score was only tied once, in the first half at 2-2.
After its offense stalled on Wednesday, Hawaii found its rhythm early going inside to Roper. The 6-foot-5 center was 3-for-6 from the field before picking up her second foul. With Roper on the bench, the Rainbow Wahine turned to its outside game.
Gabrielova started a 17-2 run with the Wahine holding a slim three point lead at 18-15. Gabrielova made a layup through traffic, sank two free throws and a trey. Greeny padded that lead with one from the charity stripe and a long bomb with 3:45 remaining. The Wahine added six more points to hold a surprising 35-17 lead at the half.
"We started to get our inside-outside game," Greeny said. "We started to push the ball a little more. Our posts made the difference today. They were making the shots we were missing against Reno and that opened it up for the guards outside."
While the offense was grooving, the defense clamped down. The Owls shot a mere 20 percent in the first half.
The last field goal before intermission came off a 17-footer by Ligget with 5:17 left.
Ligget, the Owls top scorer, was 3-for-12 and missed all four of her 3-point attempts. Johnetta Hayes led Rice with 14 points and 10 rebounds.
Hawaii snapped Rice's five-game win streak and won its sixth straight.
At Tulsa, Okla. WAC tournament
Yesterday
Men
No. 1 seed Hawaii 71, No. 9 San Jose State 59
No. 2 Tulsa 72, No. 7 Boise State 53
No. 6 Fresno State 72, No. 3 Louisiana Tech 66
No. 5 Nevada 72, No. 4 SMU 66Today (Hawaii time)
Women
No. 3 Hawaii vs. No. 2 Rice, 8 a.m.
No. 1 Louisiana Tech vs. No. 5 Tulsa, 10:30 a.m.Men
No. 1 Hawaii vs. No. 5 Nevada, 2 p.m.
No. 6 Fresno State vs. No. 2 Tulsa, 4:30 p.m.Saturday
Women
Championship, 9 a.m.
Men
Championship, 4 p.m. (ESPN2)
UH Athletics
