LAHAINA » The Hawaii men’s basketball team experienced both a big win and a troublesome loss in its brief interisland jaunt to play Chicago State.

The Rainbow Warriors put up season highs in points and 3-pointers and defeated the Cougars 86-57 at the Lahaina Civic Center last night, but suffered a potentially severe setback just 5 minutes into the game. Senior point guard Hiram Thompson was upended going for an airborne steal and landed hard on his back. He limped off and didn’t return.

UH coach Gib Arnold didn’t sound optimistic about the oft-injured Thompson’s odds of coming right back to play in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic, which starts Wednesday. Thompson will undergo some further testing to his back.

"It locked up on him. He couldn’t do anything," Arnold said. "I don’t know the severity of it. I know that he’ll be out awhile. You can tell that he was hurt. So we’ll see what it is."

Even with the tri-captain Thompson out most of the way, a shortened, six-man rotation most of the night was more than enough for Hawaii (7-2) to put away Chicago State (3-10) of the Great West Conference.

A vocal crowd nearly filled the airtight Civic Center. The crowd was also appreciative of the Cougars, who traveled quite a distance to be there but struggled against the bigger, accurate ‘Bows.

UH’s 12 3-pointers (in 25 attempts) were its highest total since 2007. Zane Johnson (career-high 21 points) and Bo Barnes (17 points) hit five each, while forward Joston Thomas added 15 points and center Douglas Kurtz a career-high 12.

Starting center Vander Joaquim had eight points and eight rebounds, as UH outrebounded the Cougars 45-31 and held them to 35.6 percent shooting.

Freshman point guard Bobby Miles played 39 of 40 possible minutes and dished a career-high 10 assists with Thompson out. Depending on how quickly Thompson returns, the team’s fortunes could be pinned on Miles’ young shoulders heading into the Western Athletic Conference season.

"Coach just told me to get in there and lead the team," said Miles, who was unconcerned about being the only ball-handler left on the roster. "I thought Hiram was coming back at halftime, but they told us he wasn’t coming back, so I just gotta play through it and lead the team."

The Rainbows were also without senior forward Bill Amis, their leading scorer and rebounder by average, for the fifth straight game. He remained sidelined with a stress fracture in his right foot.

Arnold thought the crowd was "great," and said he liked the Maui experience as "different," but he was concerned about his team being down to eight active players if Thompson misses any further time.

"Yeah, realistically, you do get concerned," Arnold said. "You play this game with five. I think as no one gets in foul trouble, I’m fine with eight. But I started thinking, what if Bobby gets into foul trouble, if Bobby goes down. Then maybe we talk to Coach Mack (Greg McMackin) about getting Miah Ostrowski out here a little sooner."

The Cougars gave UH a steady dose of fullcourt pressure and zone defense all game, but the "home" team solved it after the first 15 minutes.

UH blew open the game with a 22-3 run bridging the halves and led by as many as 32 points late. Johnson’s fifth 3-pointer put UH up 70-40 with 9:35 to play. He had a buzzer-beating 3-pointer at halftime for the second straight game.

"When we went into halftime, we said we wanted to step on their throats from the get-go (of the second half)," Johnson said. "If we could get seven stops (in a row), that’d be great. The game just opens up from there and gets easier."

UH defeated CSU for the third straight year in the islands. The first two times, CSU was coached by Benjy Taylor, who is now a UH assistant. He was happy to put the game behind him.

"I’m really glad the game’s over with," Taylor said. "Both teams can move on with their seasons. At the end of the day, it was just another game."

CSU’s new coach, Tracy Dildy, was upset about a non-call late in the first half that he felt swung the game. But he credited UH overall.

"I just thought in the second half we were kind of fighting uphill," Dildy said. "You just got a well-coached team over there. … You make a mistake with this Hawaii team, they going to make you pay."

The rare neighbor island game was UH’s first since 2003, when the Rainbows went 2-1 in the EA Sports Maui Invitational.

Dominick Brumfield scored the first basket of his UH career late in the second half.