While Hawaii is expected to contest some of the NCAA’s sanctions against it today, UH coach Eran Ganot is adding his own appeal for crowd support in the Rainbow Warriors’ Big West opener against Cal Poly tonight.

It is the third consecutive year the Rainbows have opened their 16-game conference season against the Mustangs, and the second straight time at the Stan Sheriff Center.

“This place has been a tough place to play over the years,” said Ganot, a former UH staffer under Riley Wallace and Bob Nash. “It’s really special when this place is rocking. I think the challenge is to get the most (people) we can and get the biggest attendance of the year this week.”

UH (11-2) enjoyed a successful run through nonconference play and caps its 10-game homestand Saturday against UC Santa Barbara.

Besides UH’s date with Poly, today is also the deadline to submit an appeal of the NCAA’s sanctions that included a postseason ban for the 2016-17 season, three years of probation and two docked scholarships the next two years.

The Rainbows were picked to finish third in the Big West preseason poll, while Cal Poly (6-7) projected sixth. Joe Callero’s Mustangs bested UH in each of the past two Big West openers, including 61-57 in overtime at the Sheriff last year.

The battle-tested Mustangs are coming off an 82-63 loss at No. 21 Texas A&M on Dec. 29. They gave UNLV and UCLA everything they wanted in an early season road losses, but have also stumbled to the likes of IPFW and Texas A&M Corpus Christi.

UH senior forward Sai Tummala was on the other side of power conference teams hosting Big West squads when he was at Arizona State the past two years.

“We always had a lot of respect for the Big West teams we played,” Tummala said. “We played Irvine … and they put up a really good fight. We ended up winning at the end, but it just shows you there’s not much disparity in college basketball.”

UH always seems to have a talent advantage over Cal Poly, and it’s almost never mattered. Poly has shrugged its way to victories behind its recipe of superior ball control — it again is among the nation’s best at just 10.6 turnovers per game — and defensive physicality.

But this year Callero has ramped things up on offense, in part to take advantage of the quicker 30-second shot clock. They are the second-highest scoring team in the league at 75.5 points per game, behind Hawaii’s 81.0, but have been scored on at the same rate.

“Clearly we’ve had some backslide in the sense that we’ve lost some of our defensive identity,” Callero said. “(In practices) we’re 50 to 70 percent defense and rebounding (normally), and taking care of the ball. We flipped it this year just because I don’t think we can really win in the postseason without having offensive explosiveness, like Hawaii does.”

UH will turn to its playmaking trio of point guard Roderick Bobbitt, Aaron Valdes and Stefan Jankovic, who’ve combined for 43.7 points per game. Bobbitt has scored over 30 in three of the past four contests and has moved into the team lead in 3-pointers made (24) and percentage (42.9) after his recent barrages. Valdes is coming off a triple double against Howard, the third in program history.

The Mustangs were injury-hit much of pre-conference play and Callero said regular starters Joel Awich (rolled ankle), Brian Bennett (shoulder) and Ridge Shipley (broken nose) are available on a “do-we-need-you” basis.

“I haven’t yet gotten any sympathy cards from any coaches in the league,” Callero quipped.

The beauty of the Mustangs’ system is that they don’t depend much on any one guy. The explosive David Nwaba leads the team in scoring (11.5 ppg), rebounding (5.6) and assists (4.7), but it’s spread very evenly otherwise.

The 6-9 Bennett, who resembles a football player and bulled his way to 20 points in Honolulu last year, was hampered by offseason injuries and conditioning and has played a reduced role even before his recent shoulder issues. But senior Reese Morgan, who sealed Poly’s win in Honolulu last year with some late baskets, is shooting 47.7 percent on 3s and guard Taylor Sutlive 47.5 percent.

Poly leads the series 3-2 in Honolulu.

“Those guys make good decisions and share the ball,” Ganot said. “Like I always say, the hardest thing to guard is versatility. They present a lot of versatility.”