The Hawaii basketball team just might have caught the break it needs to break through on the road.

When UH — winless in four mainland games this season — takes on UC Santa Barbara at 2 p.m. today, the Gauchos will be without sophomore forward Alan Williams, their top player. Williams, who is out with a knee injury, is the Big West’s fourth-leading scorer (17.4 ppg) and top rebounder (9.9 rpg).

The Rainbow Warriors will take anything they can get coming off their most lopsided loss of 2012-13. UH was run out of San Luis Obispo on Thursday in an 88-59 defeat at Cal Poly. It was the team’s fourth loss in five games since a 3-0 start to league play.

"That’s their first really bad loss in the league," 15-year UC Santa Barbara coach Bob Williams observed. "They’ve been in every game. I think that was an out-of-character game. And I anticipate that they will play much better at our place. They got outrebounded by an undersized Cal Poly team. I think there will be fire in their eyes."

UH bused a couple of hours southeast to Santa Barbara on Friday, then got in a practice at the 6,000-seat Thunderdome.

"It was good. We needed to get back on the floor," UH coach Gib Arnold said. "When you’ve got a game like that, the taste in your mouth obviously isn’t very good."

The 38-21 rebounding disparity in favor of the Mustangs was indeed the most alarming aspect of Thursday’s game. It was only the third time this season that UH — a top-20 team in rebounding margin entering the game — was beaten on the backboards.

No small part of that was a season-worst two-point, one-rebound effort in 12 minutes by senior center Vander Joaquim.

"He’ll be fine. He’s a huge part of what we do and he’s going to be OK," Arnold said.

UC Santa Barbara was without Williams in a 75-69 home loss to Cal State Northridge on Thursday.

Coach Williams ruled out his star — "probably the single-most impactful force as there is in this league," he called him — for today’s game.

"We have to shoot the ball now," he said. "There’s no way around that; we don’t have an inside game."

UH’s perimeter defense has been a concern of late, as UH’s last two opponents have sunk a combined 27 3-pointers. And the Gauchos average 8.7 treys per game, second in the Big West.