Hawai'i's first look at its recently renovated Rainbow Wahine basketball team was a bit frightening, unless you were 5.

The 'Bows had to go into overtime last week to beat Hawai'i Pacific, 73-70. They turned the ball over 26 times, were out-rebounded by a much smaller school — figuratively and literally — and could not contain a small sophomore forward out of Konawaena.

The Sea Warriors, particularly Mana Hopkins-Vandenakker, shined in the exhibition. Hawai'i, playing in front of its largest crowd in a very long time (1,092 turnstile, 1,938 tickets sold), inspired more questions than answers in UH coach Dana Takahara-Dias' debut. She found optimism only in the crowd, final score, her team's tenacity and sons Hunter and Logan's postgame assesment.

"They could see in my face and hear some of the comments that we struggled," Takahara recalled. "Hunter said 'Mommy, you DID win.' I said, 'That's true, we did OK tonight.' And then they said this — 'Tomorrow is another day.' That was from an 8- and 5-year old. I had to be cheered up by my two sons. It reminded me that even though we didn't execute the way we wanted, we won the game."

The next day, the Rainbow Wahine worked on defense the entire practice. UH was 8-23 last season, while head coach Jim Bolla was suspended then fired. When it introduced itself to the "new era" by nearly losing to a Division II team, there was concern.

Takahara has preached patience from the May day she was hired, but hers is not infinite. After Hopkins, last season's PacWest Freshman of the Year, dissected her defense, her upbeat exterior masked frustration.

"I thought we could have executed a whole lot better," she said. "I thought we needed to do some major cleaning up of our fundamentals. We put 73 points on the board. For our first outing, that is ridiculous. I'm so proud of them. But we gave up 70 on the other end, and I thought we prided ourselves on defense.

"You cannot have a bad night on defense. That's just unacceptable for us. So we went back to the drawing board."

Last season's heartache and last week's headache are now in the past. The Rainbow Wahine open their season Tuesday at UC Riverside, then car pool to UCLA (Thursday) and Cal State Bakersfield (Nov. 21) on their season-opening road trip.

What Takahara and her team take from last week is the realization that people care again, and there remains tons of work to do — for players and staff members, who have been on an extended coaching hiatus.

Takahara was "humbled" by the size of the crowd, which stood in stark contrast to the few hundred the 'Bows have drawn the last few seasons. Vince Goo, her coach at UH and a mentor, was "shocked" at what he termed an outpouring of support.

"It was really nice to see," Goo said. "It was because of what Dana has been saying in the media about what she wants do for this program and how she's going about it, and what her priorities are. Obviously, a lot of people had seen and read the print media about what she was saying and they can support her philosophy."

On that somewhat scary night, Goo was also impressed at the players' interaction with the staff: "Whenever players make eye contact with the coach and acknowledge what you are saying," he said, "that's more than half the battle."

Team manager Tara Hittle, an all-conference volleyball player who started in basketball the last two years, was struck by something else about Takahara.

"I saw a lot of encouragement from her," Hittle said. "Honestly, if I was the coach and my team was not playing that well, I'd be upset. But she continued to build them up, look at positives and talk about what needed to change. It seemed like instead of getting real down on them she stayed positive with them."

Hittle attributed much of the Rainbow Wahine's nervousness to the unexpectedly large crowd.

"I think a lot of fans were curious to see the new coach and what's going to happen, how this team will be now," said Hittle, who is student teaching at Hanahau'oli School this semester before graduating. "The whole Bolla thing was a lot of drama for everyone. They were all excited to see what Wahine basketball is now. And if the team performs, they should be."