Last Saturday Hawaii beat UC-Irvine 59-48 in the Big West women’s tourney title game to earn an automatic bid to this week’s NCAA tournament. The Rainbow Wahine won exactly 1 game in December but got hot at the right time and won each of their last 8 games to make the NCAA tourney, where they will face #2 seed Baylor in Waco on Friday. Earlier today HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel got to speak with Hawaii coach Laura Beeman about winning 500 games and making it back to the NCAA tourney.
You played basketball at Cal State San Bernardino, where you set school records for AST in a game/season/career: what is the key to being a great PG? Listening to your coach: I am kidding! You have to think about the game a bit: it is a lot about sharing the ball, being a great voice, and making your teammates look good.
How did you 1st get into coaching? It was 1 of those sliding doors and I chose the correct 1. I really had no clue what I wanted to do with my life after graduating. I got a call from the coach at Redlands who invited me to become a grad assistant and they would pay for my masters’ degree. I was there for a couple of years and became a head coach at Mt. San Antonio a couple of years after that.
In the 2011 WNIT title game as an assistant to Michael Cooper at USC you had an 8-PT loss to Toledo: how did you like working for a 5-time NBA champion? I truly loved it because he is an amazing guy who treated me very well. He taught me so much about basketball: as great a player as Coop was, he was never demeaning/degrading and just wanted to share his knowledge. I got to be a fly on the wall and see how he did it.
In the 2016 NCAA tourney as head coach at Hawaii you had a loss at UCLA: what did you learn from your prior trip to the tourney that you think will help you this year? Experience is the best teacher because you do not know what you do not know! My assistant Alex Delanian and I have been there before and know about the excitement/jitters. The hard part is to win more regular season games next time so that we can get a better seed. We only have an upside because there is no pressure on us.
You have won more than 500 games during your career: what makes you such a good coach? I am old! I have been fortunate to have really great players and assistants who are strong where I am weak. They let me do what I am good at and this team has been incredibly special. We had 9 new players and it has been pretty fun down the stretch and rewarding for everyone.
You were inducted into the Cal State San Bernardino Hall of Fame in 2017 and the California Community College Hall of Fame in 2019: where do those rank among the highlights of your career? To be a part of such prestigious organizations means a lot. I was a decent college player but had great people around me to help with my success. I love seeing my players graduate and go on to have great careers/families, which ranks up there as well, as well as my 1st title at Mt. Sac.
You went more than a month this season from December 6-January 7 without winning a single game: how were you able to turn things around 3 weeks ago and win each of your final 8 games? That was a tough time. Our COVID protocols here in Hawaii were very different than in the rest of the US. We were not even allowed to have a scout team, which was challenging. We were wearing masks and could only have a certain # of kids on the floor at 1 time so we could not build chemistry or play 5-on-5 in open gyms. The biggest challenge at the time was to take a deep breath because we had the right pieces, and eventually they saw it work. It took us time to develop/grow because our requirements have been incredibly difficult but the team bought in and believed in what we could be.
Last Saturday in the Big West tourney title game you had a win over UC-Irvine: how were you able to become the 1st Rainbow Wahine team to ever win both the regular season/tournament titles in the same season? We get great support from our fans/administration and they give us everything they possibly can. The 2nd part is the kids: they believe in 1 another and do not want our season to end. We kept preaching that they would have to earn everything because nobody would give us anything: it has been really impressive and they show mad respect to our opponents.
SR F Amy Atwell leads your team in a variety of stat categories this year (PPG/RPG/3PM/FT%/STL): where does she rank among the best all-around players that you have ever coached? I had some great players who turned pro but Amy is absolutely up there. She has overcome an ACL injury and all of the COVID stuff but finally made the commitment to being in the best shape possible. She will leave a huge legacy at our program, which has really set her apart.
How do you feel about being a #15 seed, and what do you know about Baylor? I know they are very good. They have a top WNBA draft pick in NaLyssa Smith and Queen Egbo will also be a difficult matchup for us. They fly down the court in transition so we will have to play the best basketball we have played all year. Coach Nicki Collen knows what they are doing and playing in Waco will be a challenge for us…but we did not come this far to roll over. I just hope the lights are not too bright for us.