Rainbow Wahine take first road test of WAC season
By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer
Tonight, the University of Hawai'i Rainbow Wahine play at Southern Methodist. Saturday, they're at 15th-ranked Louisiana Tech. If you want to find Kim Willoughby in between, look for Cajun Cafe and the nearest crawfish.
"The crawfish are really good now, you know," says Willoughby, who grew up outside New Orleans. "They're bayou crawfish now so they're bigger."
SMU and Tech are bigger still.
This is the Rainbow Wahine's most demanding basketball trip of the season. It is also their first. Until it ends no one will really know how good this 8-3 team is. Last week's runaways over UTEP and Boise State in their Western Athletic Conference openers proved little.
"This is a major mental change," UH senior Christen Roper admits. "We've played good teams in preseason, but we had all this time off (Dec. 21-Jan. 2). Then we played those two teams, which was almost like a warmup for going on the road. Now we're playing better teams on the road and about half the girls haven't traveled before."
LaTech defeated the Mustangs, 74-64, Saturday in a game decided in the final minute. It was only the second loss at home for SMU (6-5, 0-1), which upset then-No. 15 Oklahoma last month.
The Mustangs are hitting just 38 percent of their shots — exactly where they were a year ago when they had their worst season in a decade. But their results have been better this season, validating their inclusion on womenscollegehoops.com's "Cinderella List," composed of teams likely to return to the postseason after getting shut out in 2002.
Tech also had a forgettable 2001-02 season, but for the Techsters that meant holding off Hawai'i, 53-50, in the WAC championship game followed by a first-round NCAA Tournament loss. Louisiana Tech (8-2, 1-0) is one of two teams (the other is Tennessee) to play in all 21 NCAA Tournaments. It has won three national titles and played in eight national finals.
That all came with Leon Barmore sitting on the bench. Now Kurt Budke is the coach and little seems to have changed. LaTech's only losses came against fifth-ranked Tennessee and unranked Western Kentucky. It has four players averaging in double digits, including Cheryl Ford, preseason pick for WAC Player of the Year and Utah Jazz star Karl Malone's daughter.
"I don't think our players will have a false sense of security," UH coach Vince Goo says, smiling. "They know we have to play really well up there. And it's got to start with defense against SMU and Tech. Offense will be on and off different nights. We may have a good night, we may not, but we've got to defend. And playing defense on the road is not hard."
On paper, Tech and UH look similar. With Willoughby averaging nearly a point a minute her first two games since coming over from volleyball, UH has five players averaging at least 10 points. The teams are 1-2 in WAC scoring and shooting percentage defense. Both are among the Top 30 in most power rankings.
But Hawai'i has never beaten Louisiana Tech. Until that WAC championship game last March, it did not come close. The Rainbow Wahine have not defeated a ranked team in more than four years and that was at home. A win in Ruston, on regional television, could leave a lasting impression on the NCAA committee.
"Playing on the road is going to be a big mental test for us," says senior Michelle Gabriel. "We have to block out everything. Just play our game, that's all. It begins on defense. The two wins gave us confidence. But now we've got to step it up."
OVER AND BACK: Both road games will be broadcast live on 1420 AM, beginning at 2:45 p.m. HST today and 3:45 p.m. Saturday. ... Saturday's game will be shown on cable station Fox Sports West 2 at 4 p.m. ... The Rainbow Wahine's next home game is Sunday, Jan. 19, against San Jose State. The game starts at 5 p.m. ... Hawai'i is 11-1 against SMU, winning the last six. ... The Rainbows are 34-13 in WAC road games.
