Time away from the court gave the Rainbow Wahine basketball team much-needed time to focus on itself.

Hawai'i (3-5) spent the past two weeks working on its game and preparing for the semester's final exams. Tomorrow, the Rainbow Wahine will find out how prepared they are at the tough Duel in the Desert tournament in Las Vegas.

The Rainbow Wahine open against Kansas State (4-5) at 5:30 p.m. Hawai'i time. The three-day tournament runs through Monday at Cox Pavilion. Six of the eight tournament teams played in the postseason last year.

"When you sit idle for a long time, it gives you an opportunity to work on special skills like offense and defense," Hawai'i coach Dana Takahara-Dias said.

The Rainbow Wahine, who last played on Dec. 5, spent time on "individual and small-group things." To prepare for the tougher competition in Las Vegas, Hawai'i practiced on Wednesday against Da Braddahs, a group of male UH students it has played against this season. There were three male players on the court and they were joined by team manager and former basketball and volleyball player Tara Hittle and redshirt sophomore Courtney Gaddis. The Rainbow Wahine started slow against Da Braddahs, rallied late to force overtime, then lost in overtime.

"Every aspect of our game has improved and we are very excited to play again," Takahara said. "We haven't played in a while, we're itching to get out onto the court to see how much we've improved.

"But nevertheless, we never lost sight of the fact that we still work, we still have fun and hopefully the chemistry is getting better as we move along in the season."

The time away also gave the Rainbow Wahine time to tackle final exams for the fall semester, which ends today.

"We've talked about academics as being one of the areas of our goals," Takahara said. "We're very proud of our players, because going into this final session in the fall semester , you'll see an improvement in the GPAs.

"So we've been working hard in the classroom as well, so I'm very proud of the fact our players have been taking care of business in the classroom, too."

Keisha Kanekoa is averaging 11.1 points per game to lead the Rainbow Wahine and Dita Liepkalne is averaging 7.5. Rebecca Dew is averaging 5.9 rebounds.

Ashley Sweat is averaging 19.3 points, 7.2 rebounds and shooting 51 percent from the field for Kansas State.

Brittany Chambers is averaging 12.6 points and Kari Kincaid is averaging 10.2 for Kansas State, which is shooting 43 percent from the field.

Hawai'i will play either host UNLV (4-5) or Virginia Commonwealth (5-2) on Sunday. UNLV's Jamie Smith, an 'Iolani alumna, is averaging 8.7 points and 9.6 rebounds. Last year, she was the school's first-ever Mountain West Conference Freshman of the Year.

Other teams in the tournament are 10th-ranked Florida State (9-0), Arkansas (6-2), DePaul (7-3) and Texas-San Antonio (4-3).

"We look at it as playing consistently for three straight days," Takahara said. "We look at it as an opportunity to actually get better before the WAC (Western Athletic Conference) season."

NOTES

Live stats for the entire tournament can be accessed at http://unlvrebels.com ... Hawai'i hosts Kent State (5-3) on Dec. 29 and 30. The Rainbow Wahine last played at home on Dec. 3.