’Bows take ‘mo’ on the road

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With consecutive home wins tucked away, the Hawaii men's basketball team heads back on the road today for a two-game swing through Idaho.

Road Woes UH's performance in road games in recent years: Year W-L 2007-08 1-3 2006-07 3-8 2005-06 3-7 2004-05 2-8 2003-04 5-7 2002-03 3-11 Source: UH athletics

The Rainbow Warriors were scheduled to depart Honolulu this morning and face Boise State, the Western Athletic Conference's highest scoring team, on Thursday. The trip continues Saturday in Moscow, with UH taking on Idaho.

"We made a pact that we're going to do everything we can to try to hold home court," UH coach Bob Nash said after the Rainbows' win over Fresno State on Saturday to move into fourth place in the WAC. "Now we have to go on the road and prove we can win on the road. We won at San Jose, now we have to see if we can win at Boise and try to win at Idaho to stay in this thing."

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By taking care of the ball, the Hawaii basketball team was able to take care of business in its last two home games.

Maintaining that efficiency will be critical for the Rainbow Warriors this week as they embark on their second Western Athletic Conference road trip of the season.

The Rainbows (7-10, 3-2 WAC) were scheduled to leave this morning for a trip to Idaho. They face Boise State (13-5, 4-2) on Thursday and Idaho (4-13, 1-5) on Saturday.

They practiced for about an hour yesterday afternoon at Gym II to work on some of their defensive schemes in preparation for a Boise State team that leads the WAC in scoring and maintaining the shooting stroke that helped lift them to a 75-62 win over Fresno State on Saturday.

"Our shooters are starting to find their groove. That's why we didn't want to take today off," UH coach Bob Nash said. "If we take today off and take Monday off because of travel, that's two days we go without shooting the basketball and we want to keep the rhythm we have right now."

The Rainbows closed a three-game homestand with wins over San Jose State and Fresno State, limiting their miscues on offense in both to head on the road with momentum and their first winning streak of the season.

Entering the game against San Jose State a week ago today, Hawaii had been averaging more than 15 turnovers per game. They Rainbows gave the ball away just 14 times in the two games since, charged with nine turnovers in the win over SJSU and a season-low five against Fresno State on Saturday.

"I thought our guys did a nice job of taking care of the ball," Nash said after the game. "(Fresno State does) a lot of pressuring, but we took care of the ball. We made the right reads. We were unselfish.

That unselfishness was manifested in 20 assists on 29 field goals. It marked the third time this season the Rainbows dished out at least 20 in a game as Matt Gibson matched his career high with eight and Bobby Nash surpassed his career best with eight of his own.

"Bobby had a jump shot in the corner, he saw Bill (Amis) underneath the basket wide open for a dunk," Bob Nash said. "Matty drives, he sees Jared (Dillinger) wide open for a 3. That's the way you play basketball."

Having gotten comfortable at home, the Rainbows will go back on the road to face a Boise State team coming off an impressive offensive performance of its own. The Broncos hit 13 3-pointers and shot 54 percent from the field with 23 assists in a 95-80 win at Nevada on Saturday.

Boise State is averaging a league-best 82.3 points per game, led by the frontcourt combo of Matt Nelson and Reggie Larry, who have three WAC Player of the Week awards between them. Guard Matt Bauscher and forward Tyler Tiedeman have turned in big games lately. Bauscher hit for 24 in a loss at Utah State last week and Tiedeman scored 27 in the win over Nevada, hitting four 3-pointers.