Women’s Basketball Preview: Inoue, UCI will face struggle

Tamara Inoue has taken up yoga, regularly attends a spin class, and said her assistant coaches occasionally order her to visit the beach.

These are all therapeutic diversions that figure to be needed as the first-year head coach navigates what is expected to be a trying season with the UC Irvine women’s basketball team.

Inoue was hired in April to replace Doug Oliver, who retired after a 4-27 campaign in which only two of 344 Division I teams lost more games.

UCI dropped its last 11 contests and 22 of its final 23 last season, when it ranked last in the country in three-point shooting (22.4%), was No. 338 in scoring margin (minus 16.7 points per game), No. 340 in rebound margin (minus 8.6) and No. 335 in field-goal shooting (34.2%).

The Anteaters lost their top two scorers from last season, though they return the rest of their top-six offensive contributors, led by 6-foot senior forward Mckenzie Piper.

Piper, who started 27 games last season, averaged 7.5 points. The Illinois transfer is clearly the team leader and personifies the kind of effort Inoue and her staff are seeking as they begin a rebuild that won’t likely be visible until next season.

“We’re building and it’s a process,” Inoue said. “This conference is highly competitive and we don’t take anything for granted. So we know it’s going to be a while until we can get there. I hope I have the patience to know that we are doing everything in our power, recruiting, and just trying to get better every day. We want to be competitive and never quit. Our biggest thing is working our butts off and looking to get better every day.”

Inoue and assistants Cecilia Russell-Nava, Krystle Evans, and Ebony Haliburton have landed four transfers, three of whom are sitting out this season, and one incoming freshman since arriving last spring. The program welcomed nine new recruits for next season on signing day Wednesday.

West Virginia transfer guards Yazzy Sa’Dullah and Lauren Saiki, as well as former Utah Valley guard Deijah Blanks are sidelined this season due to NCAA rules, while 6-foot-4 junior Sabrina Engelstad, who began her collegiate career at Saint Mary’s, is expected to contribute right away.

Brooke Bayman, a 5-5 freshman point guard from JSerra High, is expected to start Friday’s opener, against visiting Saint Louis at 2 p.m.

Joining Bayman in the projected lineup Friday will be returners Piper, Shereen Sutherland, Andee Ritter and Teirra Hicks, Inoue said.

Sutherland, a 6-2 post who transferred to UCI from Arizona, averaged 7.4 points and 4.9 rebounds as a junior, when she started 19 games.

Ritter averaged 6.8 points per game last season, in which she started 11 of the 15 games she played after returning from injury. She was a member of the Big West Conference All-Freshman Team.

Hicks, a 5-10 junior, scored 66 points in 20 games last season, all off the bench.

Irene Chavez, a 5-3 senior guard, averaged 7.3 points and led the team with 23 three-pointers. She played in all 31 games and started 16.

Inoue said Engelstad, whose dad was a star for the UCI men’s team from 1984-88 and was elected into the UCI Athletics Hall of Fame in 2006, should contribute inside off the bench, as should 6-0 senior Chloe Kellum.

Senior Brittany Glassow is another returner and will be among the 11 players Inoue expects to dress for games.

“Administrators here understand that it’s a process, but you don’t coach to lose,” said Inoue, who as associate head coach at New Mexico State the last two seasons was part of a program that went 48-13, won two conference regular-season and tournament titles, and played in two NCAA tournaments. “But you don’t coach to lose, and you don’t become a Division I coach to be mediocre. You have a standard and I want to show these women that they can do this. It’s going to be a little hard at times, but it’s easy to sleep at night, knowing how much these players care and how they work their butts off.”

UCI, picked to finish eighth in the nine-team Big West, opens conference play on Jan. 5 at home against UC Davis.