Hawaii would like nothing better than to crash UC Irvine’s block party.

Though the Big West Conference is a guard’s league by reputation and tradition, there is one notable exception this season.

Tonight is homecoming night for Irvine, ranked ninth in the country in blocked shots. The Anteaters, behind 7-foot-6 freshman center Mamadou Ndiaye — the tallest player in the country — and two other 7-footers, have proved that size still matters.

Ndiaye, of Senegal, was a big part of the reason the Anteaters were tabbed to finish first in the Big West preseason poll. So far, the ‘Eaters (13-7 overall) have backed that up with a 4-0 conference start, their best in eight years. And Ndiaye has lived up to sizable expectations, blocking 3.5 shots per game. He hasn’t missed a shot yet in Big West play with 20 straight field goals, six from tying the NCAA record.

UH (13-5, 2-2) is coming off an explosive 90-73 win at UC Davis on Thursday, in which the ‘Bows got double-digit scoring from every starter and posted their biggest winning margin on the road since an 85-68 decision at UNLV in the first round of the 2003 NIT. It snapped a five-game Big West road losing streak going back to last season.

UH is up to 19th in the country in scoring at 82.3 points per game following its highest offensive output on the mainland since producing 93 points in a win at Long Beach State on Feb. 24, 2007.

The ‘Bows flew from Northern California to Los Angeles on Friday morning, bused to relatively close Irvine and got in a practice at UC Irvine’s Bren Events Center. UH guard Keith Shamburger did not practice because he attended his aunt’s funeral in Los Angeles.

A packed house is expected at the 5,000-seat Bren.

"Like I told the guys, ‘Hey, we’re used to playing in front of big crowds. They’re not,’ " UH coach Gib Arnold said. "It might even be to our advantage. We play in front of (that many) every night. So I think it’ll make us feel right at home."

UC Irvine is looking to come up big in front of the large crowd and extend its winning streak to seven games. The Anteaters are coming off a 72-66 home win over Cal State Northridge on Thursday.

"I’m excited about the crowd, but the thing I’m most excited about for our team is the opportunity to compete against Hawaii," Irvine coach Russell Turner said in an Anteaters athletics video after the Northridge game. "We gotta stay focused on that. I don’t think the team did very well in our (season-)opening game (vs. Fresno State, a 98-97 loss at the buzzer), and we had another huge crowd. I don’t want to discourage a huge crowd because that’s really a factor for us. I’m hoping people will be excited to see the level of defense that we play and the improvement we’ve made since that first game."

The makeup of both teams is considerably different than when they met in the first round of the Big West tournament last march. That meeting in Anaheim went to the Anteaters, 71-60, after the teams split their regular-season meetings home-and-home. While UH (then the larger team) went one-and-done, balanced UC Irvine went on to the tournament final, where it lost to now-departed Pacific.

Though these larger Anteaters score at an above-average clip (74.7 ppg) like UH, this matchup is expected to be a clash of styles.

Entering the week, UC Irvine was 16th nationally in field-goal percentage defense at .383. In four conference games, UC Irvine has been even stingier, allowing just 54 points per game and a field-goal percentage of .330.

Something must give, as UH has averaged 95 points in its past two games and is best in the league in field-goal percentage at .485.

"Our coach just gave us the mentality to be the best defensive team in the conference, and with that we’ll win (the) conference," said Anteaters forward Will Davis II, last season’s Big West defensive player of the year, on Irvine video this week. "He said … even if the best defense and the best offense go head-to-head, defense usually comes out on top. So he’s just been giving us that defensive mind-set for this year."

The teams are very close in rebounding margin, with UH at plus-5.7 and Irvine just behind at 5.6. However, while the ‘Bows get their boards largely from a couple of sources (6-foot-8 forwards Christian Standhardinger and Isaac Fotu) the ‘Eaters tend to gang rebound.

The ‘Bows are expected to have senior center Davis Rozitis available after he missed the past two games due to academic ineligibility, Arnold said after the UC Davis win. UH’s tallest player at 7 feet, Rozitis could be a key reserve in this matchup. He was to fly up from Honolulu on Friday and meet the team before today’s game.

Ndiaye, who had 10 points, 10 rebounds and seven blocks in the win over Northridge, will loom large no matter what lineup UH plays. He’s even taller than another behemoth UH struggled against in early November — New Mexico State’s 7-5 Sim Bhullar — and shoots 78.9 percent from the field. Meanwhile, the springy Davis converts 59.7 percent of his shots, giving the Anteaters two of the top three finishers and shot blockers in the conference.

Irvine also has two other 7-foot-plus players to call upon in Ioannis Dimakopoulos and Conor Clifford, but it’s not all about their centers. Guard Chris McNealy is the team’s top scorer at 12.3 ppg, forward Luke Nelson is the top 3-point threat (11.9 ppg) and guard Alex Young (9.4 ppg, 4.5 apg) keys the best passing team in the conference (17.1 team apg).

Standhardinger is up to 18.4 ppg and 7.7 rpg after posting three straight double-doubles, including a 22-point, 10-rebound, five-assist, five-steal, two-block effort at UC Davis.