A road victory over a recent nemesis has the Hawaii men’s basketball team thinking sweep as it prepares to face a team that has been a long-term foil.

UH’s 76-68 win over Cal State Fullerton at Titan Gym on Thursday allowed the Rainbow Warriors to exorcise some of their demons when it came to that matchup. The Titans had won the previous five in the series going back to the 2021-22 season, and all of the matchups were close – including a 63-61 overtime decision that went CSUF’s way at the Stan Sheriff Center on Dec. 30.

UH coach Eran Ganot told Spectrum News he thought it was one of the team’s better wins of the season.

“Especially when you put into context the battles we’ve had with them," Ganot said. "They’d won three or four in a row, and getting them on their home court. They had a really good student crowd that made it pretty loud in there."

UH (12-10, 4-6 Big West), which has made a habit of allowing big runs to opponents early in games, got off to one of its better starts in jumping out to a 20-point lead. Fullerton (11-11, 4-6) went small and forced four straight turnovers to whittle at the gap, but the ‘Bows recovered before halftime and did enough to protect their cushion in the second half, even with starters Juan Munoz and Bernardo da Silva unavailable down the stretch.

Da Silva fouled out with 2:50 remaining and Munoz got hurt while taking contact on a running shot attempt. He checked out with 7:04 to play.

“We’ll see. (It was) maybe his ankle," Ganot said. “His attitude was good, he’ll do his treatments and we’ll go from there and be smart about it.”

Noel Coleman scored 21, matching his scoring average over the last three games while moving into a tie for fifth with Carl English on UH’s all-time 3-point chart with 162 makes. And for one of the few times this season, UH got strong play at the 3 position, as Ryan Rapp came off the bench to score a personal-best 11 points in 19 minutes.

Even after their struggles during the first half of the 20-game Big West regular season, the Rainbow Warriors find themselves only one game out from fourth place – a key threshold, as the top four teams are given byes in this year’s Big West tournament bracket.

However, Saturday’s opponent, league-leading UC Irvine (16-6, 9-1) is a different beast. Russell Turner’s Anteaters look to leverage their size in normal circumstances, and could very likely lean into that further against a UH frontcourt that is depleted with the season-ending injury to backup center Mor Seck.

The Anteaters already beat the ‘Bows 60-50 in Honolulu on Jan. 11, a game in which ‘Eaters point guard Pierre Crockrell II thrived in front of his Hawaii side of the family. UCI is 8-0 at the Bren Events Center this season.

Tipoff is 5 p.m. Hawaii time.

"We’ve got 10 games left. You can’t get it all at once," Ganot said. "You’ve just got to play better basketball to put yourself in position and go from there. The road is going to be daunting but that’s what you live for."

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.