IRVINE, Calif. - For a second straight season, Hawai’i has been selected to claim the 2023-24 Big West women’s basketball crown, in a vote of The Big West’s 11 head coaches announced Wednesday.
The Rainbow Wahine are coming off back-to-back victories at the Big West Championship, and tallied 95 points and six first-place votes to top the polling. UH is followed by 2022-23 regular-season champion UC Irvine with 88 points and two first-place nods, with UC Davis coming in third with 85 points and the remaining three first-place votes.
Five of the six Preseason All-Big West Team selections come from the top trio of teams, with Hawai’i and UC Davis recording a pair of picks.
The guard tandem of 2023 Big West Championship MVP Daejah Phillips and 2021-22 Big West Freshman of the Year Lily Wahinekapu are expected to lead the veteran ’Bows who had their 2022-23 season ended by eventual first-time national champion LSU.
Whaniekapu, a junior from Kane‘ohe, O‘ahu, powered the offense with a team-best 12.5 points per game to go along with 2.9 assists and 1.7 steals a contest. The All-Big West First Team selection is joined by Phillips on the All-Big West Preseason Team after the Las Vegas native averaged 11.1 points, 2.6 assists and 1.6 steals a night. Phillips punctuated the season with a game-winning three-point play in the Big West Championship game en route to MVP honors. Twelfth-year head coach Laura Beeman will have to find a replacement in the post for leading rebounder Kallin Spiller (8.7 ppg, 6.8 rpg), with the paint play expected to be bolstered with the addition of 6-foot-4 Michigan State transfer Brooklyn Rewers.
UC Irvine, picked to finish second in the polling, is back to vie for the title after the Anteaters earned the program’s first Big West regular-season title in program history. The historic 2022-23 campaign included a program-best 25 wins and the first postseason victory for a Big West basketball team since 2018 after UCI advanced to the second round of the WNIT despite an injury-depleted roster.
The ’Eaters are represented on the preseason team by junior Nikki Tom, who averaged 8.1 points and 4.6 rebounds per game in 2022-23. The Anteaters return a solid core with nearly the entire team back to defend their regular-season crown. Along with Tom, players to watch include big West Sixth Player of the Year Nevaeh Parkinson (7.2 ppg, 5.8 rpg), and point guard duo Diaba Konate (8.7 ppg, 3.6 apg) and Déja Lee (8.5 ppg, 2.3 apg).
UC Davis is ranked third in the voting, seeking to return to the trophy-hoisting days from 2016 to 2021. The Aggies will rely on top-scoring seniors and All-Big West Preseason Team selections Evanne Turner and Tova Sabel to let them back to the top of the conference. Turner led The Big West in scoring as a junior averaging 15.1 points per game, making a league-best 2.6 three-pointers per game while connecting 35.9 percent of the time. Turner is the current UCD program record-holder with 229 triples and counting. Sabel ended the 2022-23 season with a streak of nine consecutive double-digit scoring contests, finishing the year averaging 11.9 points and 4.0 rebounds per game.
Also back in the mix for the Aggies is reigning Big West Freshman of the Year Megan Norris (6.8 ppg, 5.5 rpg, .482 FG%). With 6-6 forward Lena Svanholm returning from an injury and the addition of Colorado transfer Ally Fitzgerald, head coach Jennifer Gross addressed the need for depth in the post position.
After a gap in the votes, the next grouping of three is also tightly bunched with UC Santa Barbara (65 points) in fourth, and Cal State Fullerton and UC San Diego knotted with 59 points apiece.
Veteran head coach Bonnie Henrickson will have to replace a pair of All-Big West first teamers from a year ago in Ila Lane and Alexis Tucker. Without the dominant post play of Lane, UC Santa Barbara is expected to change their style of play to emphasize rebounding by committee with a motion offense. Key returners for the Gauchos include Alyssa Marin (8.3 ppg, 2.8 apg), Anya Choice (7.4 ppg, 2.6 apg) and Alexis Whitfield (6.1 ppg, 4.5 rpg, .453 FG%).
The remaining Preseason All-Big West selection is Titan senior Fujika Nimmo. A second-team All-Big West performer in 2022-23, Nimmo averaged 14.5 points and 3.1 rebounds for Cal State Fullerton. The dual-national participated in Japan’s women’s basketball national team training camp over the summer to add another tool to the toolkit for the senior from Davenport, Fla. Nimmo will be joined on the floor by fellow senior Ashlee Lewis who led the team at 7.3 rebounds per game while also averaging 10.3 points per game.
The Tritons will look to two returning starters, Izzy Forsyth and Parker Montgomery, to continue to push toward the top of the pack. Forsyth averaged 9.5 points and 4.7 rebounds per game a season ago with Montgomery contributing 6.2 points and 2.1 assists per game. UCSD also gets back graduate student Denali Pinto, a Colorado School of Mines transfer who scored 17 points in the team debut with UCSD before missing the remainder of last season due to injury.
Under the direction of first-year head coach Amy Wright, Long Beach State lands in seventh with 45 points, just ahead of Cal Poly’s 42 points. With UC San Diego completing their final year of reclassification and an adjustment to an eight-team Big West Championship bracket, Cal State Bakersfield is narrowly predicted to claim the final spot in the postseason field with 25 points in the preseason predictions. UC Riverside (24 points) and CSUN (18 points) round out the poll.
The 2023-24 season begins with six teams in action on Monday, Nov. 6. Big West play opens just ahead of the new year with five contests on Thursday, Dec. 28. The 2024 Hercules Tires Big West Basketball Championships, presented by the Hawaiian Islands, return for a third edition inside The Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nev., March 13-16. New in 2024, the bracket will consist of the top eight eligible teams with the Nos. 1 and 2 seeds securing a spot in the semifinal round.
Fans can tune in at 1 p.m. PT today, Wednesday, Oct. 18 for the 2023-24 Big West Basketball Preview airing live on ESPN+. Krista Blunk and Tammy Blackburn will provide analysis of all 11 Big West teams heading into the season and insights on the games, players and teams to watch as the 40th season of Big West women’s basketball begins. Chloë Clark will join Blunk and Blackburn, providing coaches commentary and insightful feature stories on Big West student-athletes.
Aching for more content beyond the one-hour season preview? Full coach interviews will be available on The Big West YouTube channel as the show airs.