UH looks to
continue streak

There is one aspect of the Hawaii women's basketball team's makeup that coach Jim Bolla has to like.

The Rainbow Wahine lost the first two games of the season, but, so far, have stubbornly refused to taste defeat in consecutive games again.

Prior to Thursday's narrow defeat at Rice, the Wahine had bounced back with victories over California, Wake Forest, Nevada, Southern Methodist and Texas-El Paso following the previous five losses. They will try to keep that streak going when they play the Tulsa Golden Hurricane today at 10 a.m. Hawaii time in a Western Athletic Conference game at the Reynolds Center.

Tulsa is also coming off a tough defeat. The Golden Hurricane fell 61-53 to San Jose State on Thursday. That was Tulsa's first home loss this season after nine wins.

The Wahine (8-7, 4-4 WAC) worked on transition defense in practice yesterday. They were burned several times in Thursday's two-point loss to Rice when the Owls went end-to-end for easy layups.

"We didn't bother the rebounder and we didn't get back to half court and have someone identify the ball," Bolla said. "We just let them drive in and score."

Tulsa (13-5, 5-3) lost its first two WAC games on the road, then won five consecutive conference encounters before being upset by San Jose State.

"They are another team that is athletic, can shoot the 3, have good height and push the ball upcourt," Bolla said. "Now that we have seen everyone, it's kind of a rubber stamp.

"If we can cut our turnovers in half, we'll be in good shape. We did a lot of other things well against Rice."

The 26 turnovers against Rice were a season high. Several of those turnovers were self-inflicted. The Wahine simply threw the ball too high to a teammate or one way when the teammate broke in a different direction.

The result was a review of the UH offense against man and zone defenses in practice yesterday that included a 15-minute controlled scrimmage.

"We went just long enough to give them some work, but not enough to tire them out," Bolla said.

Hawaii leads the series with Tulsa, another school headed to Conference USA next year, 10-4 and is 5-3 in road games against the Golden Hurricane.

Notes: The Wahine were greeted by a snow storm when they arrived in Tulsa yesterday. ... Sophomore center Brittany Grice, with three blocked shots vs. Rice, is now fifth on the UH career list with 70.