Stefan Jankovic knows where he comes from, and he knows where he belongs. Hawaii basketball’s go-to big man thrives in just about any situation in between.

At first glance, the Rainbow Warriors’ most versatile player is not easily pigeonholed. A Serbian-born Canadian with American schooling? A finesse stretch 4 masquerading as a post banger?

Jankovic’s position is clear: He’s a 6-foot-11 Serbian, as his affinity for Balkan hip-hop music will attest. And he still loves to shoot from the outside, first and foremost, even as he’s largely succeeded at playing inside-out for the 16-2 (5-0 Big West) Rainbows this season.

“I can say I’m pleased,” said the lithe-for-his-size junior. “I’m still trying to find my spots outside a little more and use my mismatches. But then again, we’re winning.”

Jankovic leads the Rainbow Warriors with 15.6 points per game, 6.5 rebounds per game, 57.7 percent shooting from the field and 43.2 percent shooting on 3-pointers, all improvements on his sophomore season. Over the past five games — UH’s league schedule — he’s upped his average to 19.2 points. His dramatic, last-second 3 on Jan. 16 at Cal State Fullerton sent that game to overtime, where UH prevailed.

He’ll look to keep it going Saturday against Long Beach State as the Rainbows seek their ninth straight win.

In the preseason, new UH coach Eran Ganot asked him to embrace playing the 5 and the “in” component of the four-out, one-in offense. It was a drastic departure from what he was accustomed to at any point of his career. If anything, Jankovic would drift to small forward.

“From Day 1 I’ve told people that he’s vastly underrated as a low-post scorer,” Ganot said. “Early … he had some resistance with it. But he’s got great footwork, he can finish with both hands, and he’s big. And he’s consistently improved as a perimeter shooter. That’s why I said his next step was playing off the bounce and making decisions off the bounce. Now you’re talking about a guy who’s already a dangerous threat becoming that much more dangerous.”

Despite his early reluctance, the forays into the paint have helped “Janks” in one great respect.

Jankovic’s paternal family hails from a Serbian village named Foca (Fo-cha) in Bosnia. Hardiness — and size — were bred down through the mountainous region generation by generation.

“So they say, the village people are always tough like goats. All farmers,” Jankovic said, the slightest trace of Serbian accent in his words. “The village strength. Natural, they never lift weights in their life. I thought I was adopted because, if you saw the pictures of some of my uncles and cousins, even my dad to this day can do 50 push-ups on one hand. No joke, no exaggeration.”

Jankovic’s father, Drago, had an innate love of sports and the outdoors that were at odds with the ethnic strife of the region during the 1990s. After relocating from conflicts several times, the one-time professional handball player fled war-torn Yugoslavia for good in 1997 with his wife and son when Stefan was 5. NATO helped resettle them near Toronto before the country split apart.

“It was too much for a young couple like me and my wife,” Drago said on the phone from Canada. “New life, you don’t know. Basically you came with the two bags, all the clothing and stuff, and nothing else. So you start from the scratch, how you say. You’re 29 years old … I started working.”

Drago, a former Yugoslavian soldier, delivered pizzas and worked construction before becoming a truck driver. He eventually started his own successful trucking company.

Over the next 10 years, Stefan took to his new home. He played soccer, became an exceptionally tall black belt in karate, and took to basketball in particular. He became a fixture on the Canadian youth scene and befriended the likes of Andrew Wiggins, Anthony Bennett and former Rainbow Negus Webster-Chan along the way.

Drago has watched his son’s progress intently, from high school prep ball in the States to the start of his college career at Missouri, through his transfer to UH and the NCAA difficulties the Rainbows encountered around the time he got there.

There have always been obstacles.

“Stef’s situation was always, he needs to toughen up,” Drago said. “You know what I mean. He can play any position because he is talented. He is tall. He is great. But he needs to work harder. I was always pushing him to work harder. … So in so many situations, he didn’t have that opportunity to work hard, to show himself. Right now in Hawaii, he has that.”

Jankovic’s ability to play with grit was perhaps best encapsulated in a play against current No. 1 Oklahoma in the Diamond Head Classic. The big man caught the ball in a corner, drove baseline and threw the ball down with two hands, catching the Sooners — and a national TV audience — off guard.

His future at UH beyond this season is up in the air. He loves the beach and his little brother, Andreas, is enrolled at Maryknoll. But besides next year’s postseason ban muddling things, he is slated to graduate in political science this spring and desires to play pro ball before starting law school. Jankovic is holding off until after the season to make a decision.

Meanwhile, an analogy can be drawn between Jankovic’s roots and his new paint job.

“A tribute to the village? Tribute to Foca? Yeah, kind of,” Jankovic said with a smile. “I’ve always, in my opinion I’ve been labeled as soft throughout my career, but I’ve never been. I’m not afraid of anything or anyone, really. It’s just I guess I played with more finesse, so that was viewed as soft and this and that. I kind of want to throw that label out completely, because I’m nowhere near (that).”

Out of necessity, Stefan Jankovic has embraced his inner mountain man.