Starting off with a bang at home is one thing. Taking that party to the road is something else entirely.

The Hawaii men’s basketball team seeks to keep its solid play going in hostile territory today in the Rainbow Warriors’ first Western Athletic Conference road game of the season at Fresno State.

UH won its league opener convincingly, 82-69, over San Jose State on Saturday. The Bulldogs are a beatable opponent, but recent history is not on the Rainbows’ side. The last time they won their first WAC road game was in 2003-04, when UH started off league play 6-1.

"I think this team, believe it or not, is excited to go play some road games and see who they are, to test their mental toughness," UH coach Gib Arnold said. "I think that’s a good way to approach the road. Just go in there and look forward to it."

With that in mind, UH got in a spirited practice in Fresno before kicking off a stretch where it plays five of seven games away from home.

While UH will lean upon its tri-captains — senior guards Zane Johnson and Miah Ostrowski and junior center Vander Joaquim — to set the tone, the Bulldogs turn to their youth.

First-year FSU coach Rodney Terry, the former lead assistant at Texas, has tooled his new team’s offense around 6-foot-2 sophomore guard Kevin Olekaibe.

Olekaibe is second in the WAC at an even 18 points per game and has topped 25 points five times this season.

One of those occasions was Dec. 21 in a 68-65 comeback win at Arizona State that so far ranks as Terry’s signature victory. Olekaibe knocked down the go-ahead 3 with 29.9 seconds left. He scored 21 of his 30 points in the second half to rally the Bulldogs from 17 points down.

"I think defensively you’ve gotta definitely limit his shots and his touches," Arnold said. "As always, you want to keep their main scorers below their average and make sure someone else doesn’t go off and absorb that. He’s a really, really good player. He shoots it deep and he can drive it."

UH sophomore guard Garrett Jefferson, the team’s top defender, saw heavy time with the first group in practices leading up to the trip and figures to have an expanded role in this game to deal with Olekaibe.

"We just gotta play like we play at home on the road," Jefferson said. "It’s hard because we’re not in our same environment."

The Southern California native is looking forward to quieting the Save Mart Center crowd with some defensive stops.

"(Getting stops) definitely helps, because when the crowd’s not loud, (we can hear) when the other team calls out the plays … it becomes a lot easier because we can hedge the screens and know exactly what’s coming," he said.

An interesting battle could be between two senior pass-first point guards. UH’s Ostrowski (5.3 assists per game) and FSU’s Steven Shepp (4.7 apg) dictate pace for their teams. Ostrowski has several favorite targets in Johnson (14.7 ppg), Joaquim (12.6 ppg, 9.5 rpg) and junior forward Joston Thomas (12.2 ppg).

This is one of two regular-season meetings with the sometimes-rival Bulldogs before the schools go their separate ways next year — UH to the Big West Conference and Fresno State to the Mountain West. Terry’s only year in the WAC hasn’t gotten off to a memorable start.

The Bulldogs were blown out 72-53 at Utah State in their WAC opener last Thursday and followed up with a 63-59 heartbreaker at Idaho on Saturday. It capped off a stretch of 12 of Fresno’s first 17 games away from the San Joaquin Valley. Meanwhile, a preseason player transfer and a backup guard’s recent academic ineligibility reduced the Bulldogs’ active roster to nine.

"When you face adversity and setbacks, you have to be a fighter, stay together and continue to work hard," Terry posted on Twitter this week.

Still, FSU is usually tough at the Save Mart Center, and this year (4-1) is no exception.

UH is 4-16 all-time at Fresno State — including 1-7 at Save Mart — having won there in 2009, 73-69, behind Roderick Flemings’ 22 points and 12 rebounds.

The Rainbows complete their two-game road trip on Saturday at WAC-leading Nevada.