The biggest preparation for last night's Rainbow Wahine basketball game were two blowout losses last week.

Hawai'i continued to struggle with its turnovers, tying a season high with 27, in a 65-53 loss to No. 17 Arizona State in yesterday's opening game of the Jack in The Box Rainbow Wahine Classic at the Stan Sheriff Center. But after giving up 105 and 98 points in losses last week, Hawai'i knew at least how to prepare for another team.

"When we were on the road and we faced teams like UCLA and Bakersfield, that prepared us for tonight," Hawai'i coach Dana Takahara-Dias said. "You have seen a suffocating defense that flies at you. We were prepared just because of the level of competition we faced, so we don't necessarily shy away from our tough schedule. It just prepares us for the WAC."

Even Arizona State coach Charli Turner-Thorne knew those scores were not an indication of the Rainbow Wahine. She saw them play in her tournament last year and was impressed by how much they've improved.

"I was really impressed with their games on tape," Turner-Thorne said. "I told my team don't look at their scores.

"Those teams shot probably better than they'll shoot again."

Keisha Kanekoa scored 15 points and Shawna Kuehu added 13 for Hawai'i (1-3) in its home opener before a crowd of 808.

Hawai'i stayed close in the first half, then saw the game slip away behind its turnovers. Then it rallied from a 21-point deficit late in the game. But then the turnovers returned.

"Turnovers," Kanekoa said of her team's play late in the game. "We've done it before on the road by not even turning the ball over for seven minutes, and I think we just need to make better decisions with the ball. A lot of the turnovers come from ourselves, our mistakes."

The Sun Devils' man-to-man defense played a big part in the Rainbow Wahine turnovers. Hawai'i struggled to penetrate the defense, and when it did, it found itself going against Arizona State's trio of 6-foot-5 post players.

The Sun Devils brought three 6-5 posts and they came in for each other during the game. Kali Bennett, a 6-5 reserve, had 15 points and 15 rebounds — which included 10 offensive boards — in just 17 minutes of play.

Danielle Orsillo added 15 points and the Sun Devils outrebounded the Rainbow Wahine, 46 to 33. The Sun Devils had 24 offensive rebounds to the Rainbow Wahine's five.

"We got to work on our boxing out too, pushing bodies out, hold our position," Kanekoa said.

She sees improvement in every game for a team that went 8-23 last year and Hawai'i had signs of that, cutting a 21-point second-half deficit to 56-45 with 5:31 remaining on Brianna Arbuckle's layup off a Kuehu pass.

It was one of just five assists Hawai'i had.

Mai Ayabe's turnaround shot cut it to 59-47 with 4:13 remaining, but Bennett hit back-to-back shots to extend the lead to 63-47 with 2:15 left.

"This has been a consistent pattern for us," Turner-Thorne said. "We'll get up big and then we'll sort of have some major let ups. We just gave them shots in the paint.

"I thought we played unfocused and we just kind of struggled to finish all game."

The Rainbow Wahine weren't happy with the loss, but met one of their goals of having fun. The other was cutting down on turnovers. Takahara hopes her team can at least cut it down to 20.

"When they could've pulled away by over 20, we didn't let that happen and fought hard until the end," Takahara said.