A heartwarming win on Valentine’s Day has the Hawaii men’s basketball team feeling swell going into one its toughest stretches of the season.

Vander Joaquim had 19 points, nine rebounds and four blocks, Joston Thomas added 16 points and the Rainbow Warriors overpowered New Orleans for an 82-58 win in a nonconference game on Tuesday night at the Stan Sheriff Center.

A crowd of about 3,000 got its share of holiday highlights — and a few humorous lowlights, such as a couple of airballed UH free throws. The game was in doubt early in the second half, but the ‘Bows executed down the stretch and got contributions from multiple sources.

Point guard Miah Ostrowski dished 10 assists in 25 minutes and freshman reserve Shaquille Stokes scored 11 in his most prominent game in nearly a month. Garrett Jefferson punctuated the victory with a soaring slam in the final seconds.

After the expected win, UH (15-10) now prepares for its longest and most difficult road trip of the season, starting against Montana on Saturday in a BracketBusters nonleague matchup. The team continues straight to its final Western Athletic Conference regular-season road games at New Mexico State and Louisiana Tech next week.

The contest against the Privateers offered a chance for a feel-good win leading up to the challenging trip, and eventually it was just that. UH shot 51.7 percent to UNO’s 33.3 and the starting five got to rest most of the final 10 minutes.

"Interesting game for us," UH coach Gib Arnold said. "Taking a break from the WAC it was a game that I wanted to do a couple things. Get a little bit better, and I thought this was a team that we should beat. But I didn’t want to take them lightly, and I don’t think we did."

New Orleans (15-12), a team with limited scholarships that planned to transition out of Division I after this season, got to within 45-40 with under 16 minutes to play.

"(Coach) just said keep playing," Joaquim said. "We can’t go out there and ignore the team."

From there, UH blew it open by outscoring the Privateers 37-18. Behind their 6-foot-10 center the ‘Bows outrebounded the smaller Privateers 42-28 and outscored them 44-16 in the paint.

With the Privateers uncomfortably close, Joaquim had seen about enough and got UH back up by double figures for good.

He converted a three-point play and soon after got an open-court steal, picking the pocket of 6-foot-6 forward Albert Peterson, then dribbled in from midcourt for the slam.

"I just took the ball, that’s it," Joaquim said. "He showed me the ball. … guys who play my position don’t handle the ball very much."

Ostrowski rated that play better than the point guard’s own first-half airborne tip to himself in the open court that resulted in a basket.

"Just because he’s 7-foot," Ostrowski said. "He went coast to coast with it and dunked it."

In a heartbeat after tipoff, UH led by 20. But the Privateers charged back with a 19-4 run and kept it close for a while.

The Privateers were overmatched — their tallest player is 6-foot-7 — but they couldn’t be faulted for their effort. UNO fell to 1-7 against Division I teams this season.

"We played with a ton of heart and energy," UNO coach Mark Slessinger said. "We’re undersized but we know that and we make up for it by playing scrappy and playing hard. … I’m very proud of the direction our team played."

Stokes had his most minutes (21) since playing 39 minutes and scoring 10 points against LaTech on Jan. 19. He shot 4-for-6.

Freshman walk-on forward Tyler Brown got in on the act with his first career point on a free throw with 1:15 left, setting off a celebration on the UH bench.

"Vander’s a little nervous about that," Arnold quipped. "(Brown) leads the nation in fouls per minute. I’m sure if we played him more, he’d continue to do that. But good for Tyler … you could tell the guys were pretty excited for him when he knocked down that free throw."

HAWAII 82, NEW ORLEANS 58