In her time as the head coach of the University of Hawai‘i women's basketball team, the Big West Conference is all Laura Beeman has known.
Hired in 2012, the same year most of the school's non-football teams moved from the Western Athletic Conference to the Big West, the Rainbow Wahine have made nine postseason appearances in her 13 full seasons in Mānoa. Under Beeman, the 'Bows have been the standard in the Big West. In the last four seasons alone, the Rainbow Wahine either won the Big West regular season or tournament title, winning both in 2022.
Meanwhile, the UH men's basketball team has tried to capture the magic of Eran Ganot's first season ever since it went 28-6 with a Big West title along with the program's first-ever NCAA Tournament win in 2016. The Rainbow Warriors have yet to reach the postseason since then. In 2025, the 'Bows missed the eight-team conference tournament entirely, going 15-16 overall and 7-13 in Big West games, finishing ninth in the conference standings.
Bolstered by a roster that features eight transfers, the Rainbow Warriors are off to a 10-2 start in the 2025-2026 season, including 2-0 in Big West play. The 'Bows, who haven't played a game since a 66-61 victory over UTEP on Dec. 13, will return to the floor on Thursday against UC Riverside. Its 19-day hiatus was caused by the cancellation of the 2025 Diamond Head Classic, an eight-team tournament the Rainbow Warriors have hosted every Christmas since 2009.
"It was definitely surreal," Ganot said of the 'Bows not playing during the Christmas season in 2025. "People always talk about us playing on the 22nd, 23rd and 25th."
The Rainbow Warriors held practices on campus following the end of UH-Mānoa's fall semester before players on the roster from the Mainland got to spend Christmas with their respective families. The team then met up in Los Angeles earlier in the week ahead of Thursday's game in Riverside.
"Hopefully being able to spend time with their loved ones and their friends recharged the batteries," Ganot said. "Just seeing everybody meet up in LA, something we haven't done before. Good to see all the coaches and the players. ... Just really excited to see the guys again, get back to the grind, get back to the journey, and kind of go from there."
The Rainbow Warriors will play Big West games every week leading up to the conference tournament, which runs form March 12-15 in Henderson, Nev. Missing the tournament in 2025 has served as a large source of motivation.
"The guys who were on the team last year, we talked about it a lot," point guard Aaron Hunkin-Claytor said. "We obviously don't like that feeling. And me personally, I hate losing more than I like winning, so that kind of thing just sticks with me. I know I have a little chip on my shoulder going into the other games in this conference. I think the whole team does, and we know we have a goal in mind, and that's kind of what's motivating us to play the way that we want to play."
Meanwhile, the Rainbow Wahine are 6-6 thus far, including 0-2 in Big West games. The Rainbow Wahine have seven freshmen on their roster, and Beeman believes the inexperience has led to issues with consistency. Despite that, Beeman believes the talent on the roster can contend in the Mountain West in the near future, though that's far from the focus with a Big West season still to be played.
"We talk about it all the time," Beeman says of the impending move to the Mountain West. "I think right now, though, our focus is Big West. Talking about the Mountain West and travel isn't what's going to get us out of this hole. Obviously, we need to be better as far as our execution, being able to handle pressure, being able to play at a more physical pace. We've had some really good wins in the preseason. We've had some really bad losses. And so I look at those things like, 'OK, this is a team comparable to maybe a Mountain West team.' Obviously, a year is going to bring us a lot more experience if we keep this roster together.
"And that's the big if. I can't start thinking about Mountain West when I don't even know what team I'm going to have coming back and if I have the (NIL) money, are they going to stay? If I don't have the money, are they going to leave? And so right now, it's more just believing in our process, being really patient, trying to get ourselves out of this hole in the Big West."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
