Rainbow Wahine grind through opening practice

After wrapping up a grueling 3-hour opening practice Sunday morning, the Rainbow Wahine basketball team readied for the next challenge — Day 2.

A new-look roster reported for the first full practice of the season at 8 a.m. and pushed through an up-tempo workout in Gym II’s typically sweltering conditions. After the workout, fifth-year head coach Laura Beeman came away encouraged by the effort as the 40-day countdown to opening night commenced.

“I think they came out with the right attitudes, they came out with the right energy, they came out with the mind-set of we want to get through this practice,” Beeman said.

“Overall impression, pretty impressed with the attempt to grind through it. We had some letdowns in some areas, we had a couple people shine. Tomorrow’s actually going to be a harder day than today.”

In UH’s first practice since an NCAA tournament loss to UCLA on March 19, the Wahine alternated team drills with skill work in smaller groups and ended the morning with each player shooting a free throw with a miss resulting in down-and-back sprints for the team.

“That was kind of what the practice plan for today was, see who could grind out this kind of hard day,” Beeman said. “They’ve been warned since July, ‘you have no idea what’s ahead of you when we get into practices for 2 1/2 hours for six days straight. How are you going to handle that?’ ”

As such, the next test will be to see how they bounce back on Monday.

“We just have to work through it and we have to pick each other up, have a lot of energy, leadership has to be a little better. Day 2, it’s going to be tough,” senior guard Briana Harris said after her final opening day of practice.

While Sunday’s workout represented a “Welcome to Division I” moment for six true freshmen, Beeman said returning guards Harris, Sarah Toeaina and Olivia Crawford “were more mentally and physically prepared, as they should be.”

While Harris, Toeaina and Crawford represent the bulk of UH’s returning experience, they’re also in a growth process in developing leadership roles after following the examples of seniors such as Shawna-Lei Kuehu, Destiny King and Ashleigh Karaitiana the past two seasons.

“We miss playing with them, but it was a blessing to learn from them and with them gone we definitely have to step up,” Toeaina said.

As a freshman acclimating to college ball two years ago, Toeaina said Kuehu and Karaitiana “definitely eased it for me and I appreciate that. So now I know we have to do the same with the young ones.”

Of those newcomers, Beeman cited the effort of freshman guard Julissa Tago as a highlight of Day 1.

“Julissa Tago had a great practice,” Beeman said. “Every drill she stepped in she tried to get better. She listened, she was receptive, she did not cut her intensity down whatsoever. I think she did a fabulous job of making improvement and making steps.”

The Wahine have close to six weeks to prepare for the Nov. 11 opener at USC. But some of their most telling strides won’t come until get into the 29-game regular-season schedule.

“There’s nothing like experience,” Beeman said, “and when you have as young a team as we have, I don’t care how good we get and how quickly that growth happens, we’re still young and we still don’t have experience and the only we’re going to get that is by playing games. Until we feel the physicality and pace of a different Division I team, and some very good ones, we’re not quite going to get it.”