Rainbows ready for 4 in row on road

In the aftermath of Hawaii’s 78-72 home loss to UC Irvine on Saturday, a morose Isaac Fleming entered the postgame media room and stared downward at the interview table.

Channeling the redundancy of a Marshawn Lynch question-and-answer session, the Hawaii freshman responded to a few inquiries with the response, "It’s just the game of basketball."

Yes, losses are certainly part of the game — and so are long road trips.

The sixth-place Rainbow Warriors (14-7, 2-3 Big West) will try to separate one from the other in embarking on a dozen-day journey through California, knocking out half of their conference away games (four) in one swoop.

UH coach Benjy Taylor said the decision to stay on the mainland instead of returning home for roughly a day between a pair of two-game weeks was really no decision at all.

"We’re used to being on the road," UH coach Benjy Taylor said. "We’ll have our academic adviser with us and the guys’ll do a good job. We’ll be professional on and off the floor. It’s a part of the process. The league gave us four road games in a row. From a financial standpoint, it just makes sense to stay over there."

Taylor’s team spent Tuesday traveling from Honolulu to Los Angeles.

UH begins play at Cal State Northridge (6-15, 2-4) on Thursday, followed by co-leader Long Beach State (10-11, 4-1) on Saturday. The ‘Bows head up through central California next week with games at Cal Poly (Feb. 5) and UC Santa Barbara (Feb. 7).

Why so difficult? Well, it’s been a home-heavy schedule thus far for UH; four of five were played at the Stan Sheriff Center.

It’s a trip that could determine whether UH exceeds its fifth-place preseason prediction. To do so, the Rainbows will have to steal at least a few of their seven remaining road games.

The ‘Bows came up short in their lone Big West road game to this point, a 66-62 decision at UC Riverside. That was technically UH’s only game on an opponent’s home court so far, but that’s also somewhat misleading.

UH has traveled farther this season — it played three games in a nonconference tournament in southwest Florida, going 2-1. It’s also played in front of a hostile crowd at a larger venue — against BYU at EnergySolutions Arena in Salt Lake City, where UH was competitive much of the way before falling 90-70.

All told, UH is 2-3 on the mainland this season.

Taylor didn’t feel this trip, the longest in terms of duration, would necessarily be more difficult than the others.

"We’ll see. You know, we got a young team," he said. "But we’ve performed well at home, we’ve performed bad at home. We’ve performed well on the road and bad on the road. So, hopefully our good group will show up and we’ll have a chance to win some of these games."