Wahine hoops tabbed fourth
Big West women’s basketball coaches and media expect Hawaii to creep back toward conference contention in 2017-18.
UH was sixth 12-18 (7-9 BWC) in 2016-17, with a host of young players. But the Rainbow Wahine were selected fourth in both the BWC preseason polls (coaches and media) announced Wednesday morning.
Defending regular-season champ UC Davis and Cal State Northridge were tabbed as UH’s primary challenges to return to the pinnacle the Wahine achieved in 2016.
Senior Sarah Toeaina is expected to have a big year; she was named to the six-player preseason all-conference team in both polls after leading the team last year with 13.5 points per game. Toeaina was joined by Drew Edelman of UC Santa Barbara, Morgan Bertsch of UC Davis, Dynn and Lynn Leaupepe of Cal Poly and Channon Fluker of CSUN on the media poll.
Fluker, the reigning Big West player of the year, went off (39 points, 12 rebounds) against the Wahine in the BWC tournament second round in March, ending UH’s season.
The coaches poll was only slightly different, with Davis’ Pele Gianotti in for Dynn Leaupepe.
Here was the order of teams in both polls. First-place votes in parentheses.
Media
1. UC Davis (16)
2. CSUN (2)
3. UC Santa Barbara
T4. Hawaii
T4. Cal Poly
6. UC Riverside
7. Long Beach State (1)
8. UC Irvine
9. Cal State Fullerton
Coaches
1. UC Davis (6)
2. CSUN (2)
3. UC Santa Barbara
4. Hawaii
5. UC Riverside
6. Cal Poly (1)
7. Long Beach State
8. UC Irvine
9. Cal State Fullerton
Doesn’t matter where you begin, it’s how you play the games, that will determine who will be crowned champions….
#GoTheDistance
🌈🏀
Megan Huff better be good.
If she puts up numbers for the Utes, the decision to transfer would be justified.
It is pretty obvious that she killed Hawaii’s season.
When Coach Beeman recruited Darden, I think(yes, I know I am talking out of my a**; I don’t know anything), Huff was afraid that she would be backing up the Delaware transfer.
Nothing against the other volleyball-turned-basketball player, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why she was starting ahead of Huff. Maybe Huff thought the same thing.
Huff, at times, looked like Hawaii’s best post player since Raylene Howard.