Hawaii women’s basketball: Top 2 Big West seed still in play for Rainbow Wahine

Last Saturday’s 65-48 home loss to league leader UC Davis was a setback for the Hawaii women’s basketball team, make no mistake.

It snapped UH’s six-game winning streak and all but ensured Davis will be the No. 1 seed at next month’s Big West tournament. That said, the Rainbow Wahine (14-11, 8-4 Big West) still have the opportunity to do something meaningful in their remaining four games.

UH has sole possession of second place entering tonight’s matchup (5 p.m. HST) at UC Irvine, a game and a half up (two in the loss column) on third-place UC Santa Barbara.

UPDATE: Julissa Tago put together one of the great offensive performances in program history, going for a career-high 34 points, and setting program records for 3-pointers made in a game (eight) and season (59). But she missed a critical late free throw that would’ve tied the game after she was fouled on a 3, and UH fell 72-71.

As always, the BWC women’s tournament heavily weights the regular season so that the top two teams receive double-byes into the tourney semifinals at the Honda Center. Third and fourth place receive a single bye but still have to play a game at a campus site to get to Honda — this year at Long Beach State’s Walter Pyramid. Fifth through eighth have to survive two games at the Pyramid just to make it to the championship site.

UH has been in that position before, as recently as two years ago. It rallied up late in the regular season to earn the second seed last year, and parlayed that into a meeting (and near win) against Davis in the championship game.

The Wahine would very much like to have the same opportunity, and bypass the Pyramid entirely. Road wins at Irvine (10-17, 6-7) and at Cal State Fullerton (14-11, 6-6) would go a long way toward that end.

The No. 1 seed is not an impossibility, but Davis (15-11, 10-3) is effectively 2 1/2 games ahead of the Wahine with three (Davis) and four (UH) games to play because of the home-and-home sweep and tiebreaker earned by the Aggies last week.

This post will be updated.

Through March 11