{"id":212145,"date":"2025-03-11T15:53:14","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T01:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=212145"},"modified":"2025-03-11T15:53:37","modified_gmt":"2025-03-12T01:53:37","slug":"womens-and-mens-basketball-big-west-honors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2025\/03\/11\/womens-and-mens-basketball-big-west-honors\/","title":{"rendered":"Women\u2019s basketball leads <abbr>UH<\/abbr> to Big West honors, Christensen earn men\u2019s honorable mention"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> &lt; 1<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minute<\/span><\/span><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-womens-basketball-bw-honors.jpg\" alt=\"headshots of big west awardees\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-212090\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-womens-basketball-bw-honors.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-womens-basketball-bw-honors-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-womens-basketball-bw-honors-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at M&#257;noa <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/sports\/womens-basketball\">women&#8217;s basketball team<\/a> earned three of the Big West&#8217;s major awards and four all-conference honors, with a Big West honorable mention on the <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/sports\/mens-basketball\">men\u2019s basketball team<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Big West Conference honors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Player of the Year: Lily Wahinekapu, guard<\/li>\n<li>Freshman of the Year: Ritorya Tamilo, center<\/li>\n<li>Coach of the Year: Laura Beeman<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Beeman was named Big West Coach of the Year for the third time in four years.<\/p>\n<p>Wahinekapu averaged 11.1 points per game, 71 assists and 35 steals during the regular season, boosting her performance to 12.2 points per game in Big West play. Tamilo also earned All-Freshman honors and leads the team in shooting at 47.8%. She holds the <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> freshman record for blocked shots with 38.<\/p>\n<p>Forward Imani Perez was named to the All-Big West Second Team and All-Defensive Team for the second consecutive year. Perez contributed 29 blocks and helped anchor <abbr>UH<\/abbr>\u2019s top-ranked defense.<br \/>\nBeeman led the team to a Big West regular-season championship, with a 14-game win streak after an initial 0-2 start to conference play.<\/p>\n<h2>Men\u2019s team honors<\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-christensen-bw-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"tanner christensen on the court\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-212094\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-christensen-bw-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-christensen-bw-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/manoa-athletics-christensen-bw.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>On the men\u2019s side, Tanner Christensen earned Big West Honorable Mention honors after a standout season. The 6-10 center led the team in rebounding (6.9), field goal percentage (.599) and blocks (22). He averaged 11.0 points per game in conference play and was the team\u2019s top scorer. Christensen also led the team in double-doubles with three, and finished his collegiate career with 124 career starts in 144 games.<\/p>\n<p>Read more on the <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/news\/2025\/3\/11\/wahinekapu-beeman-earn-top-big-west-womens-basketball-honors.aspx\">women\u2019s<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/hawaiiathletics.com\/news\/2025\/3\/11\/mens-basketball-christensen-named-honorable-mention-all-big-west.aspx\">men\u2019s<\/a> basketball team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lily Wahinekapu was named Big West Player of the Year, Ritorya Tamilo earned Freshman of the Year and Tanner Christensen earned honorable mention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,82,9,550],"class_list":["post-212145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-basketball","tag-uh-manoa","tag-manoa-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":212148,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212145\/revisions\/212148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}