Rainbow Wahine look to recover from road trip

The Hawaii women's basketball team wants a reversal after losing consecutive games for the first time this season on the recent road trip.

The Rainbow Wahine went back to basics in practice this week in preparation for the Paradise Classic. They have yet to play two solid halves in the same game this season.

PARADISE CLASSIC Schedule: Tomorrow, Portland State vs. Tennessee-Chattanooga, 5 p.m.; Hawaii vs. Evansville, 7 p.m. Saturday, third place, 1 p.m.; championship, 3 p.m. Where: Stan Sheriff Center Radio: UH games live, KKEA, 1420-AM. Tickets: All seats general admission -- $8 adults, $6 seniors; UH students with valid ID and children ages 4-18 free Parking: $3 Notes: In eight games this season, the Wahine have outscored their opponents 251-231 in the first half, but have been outscored 296-248 in the second half.

The Wahine (4-4) play the Evansville Purple Aces (5-3) in a first-round game tomorrow.

The other opening game matches the Tennessee-Chattanooga Lady Mocs (4-4) against the Portland State Vikings (2-6).

Handling a zone defense, especially the 1-3-1, was the biggest obstacle for the Wahine in the road losses to Loyola Marymount and Southern California.

"We went over our zone offense and our zone defense for an hour Monday," said UH coach Jim Bolla.

"My biggest concern was the zone offense. We went over where to line up and where to make cuts so as to not match up with the opposing defense and make their job easy.

"We have two different sets we can run, but we ended up with a mutation (on the road). I have no idea how it occurred and it didn't work. We did a lot of teaching yesterday, showing them the options available."

Bolla gave the example of the player who runs the baseline from block to block. The Wahine doing that is supposed to hesitate at each block to get the defense to react. Instead she has been just running back and forth, making it easier for the defense to stay with her.

He also talked about the rotating of the high post, that the rotation was occurring at the wrong time.

"It was like the first day of practice on Oct. 14. I'm sure we'll see more 1-3-1 and I hope we do," Bolla said.

"We just didn't play the way we are capable of playing. We are lucky we didn't get beat by 40. What hurt most was our complete shutdown in the second half against LMU.

"We need to bounce back and get a couple of wins, to get our confidence back and get some positive notes."

Tomorrow's opponent, Evansville from the Missouri Valley Conference, is averaging 75.9 points a game. The Purple Aces make 41 percent of their field goals and 3-point shots and convert 80 percent of their free throws.

Junior forward Rebekah Parker leads the balanced attack with 15.8 points a game.

The Southern Conference entry, UT-Chattanooga, stopped a three-game losing streak with an 81-52 win over Eastern Kentucky on Sunday.

The Lady Mocs, 1-3 on the road, are led by junior guard/forward Alex Anderson, who is averaging 17.4 points and 10.1 rebounds a game.

Portland State of the Big Sky Conference brings a three-game losing streak to the tournament. The Vikings are 0-4 on the road.

Their top scorer and rebounder is sophomore guard/forward Kelsey Kahle, who is averaging 15.1 points and 6.1 rebounds a game.

Note:

Leilani Galdones, the freshman guard from Kamehameha-Hawaii who has been recovering from knee surgery, has been cleared to practice.