Hawaii’s special power — the ability to win — was on full display on “Superhero Night” at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Before a season-high turnstile crowd of 8,114 on Saturday, the Rainbow Warriors got several heroic efforts to beat UC Davis 78-62 and extend their winning streak to eight games, their longest streak in more than a decade.

The hosts came out in Batman warmup shirts, and Davis gamely played along with Superman garb. The Dark Knights prevailed behind forward Stefan Jankovic, who led UH with 22 points and eight rebounds, while guard Quincy Smith set a new career high with 18 points and Isaac Fleming added 13.

UH (16-2, 5-0 Big West) drew even with idle UC Irvine atop the league standings. The Rainbows bettered the 15-3 start through 18 games of their last NCAA Tournament team of 2001-02. It is the program’s best start at this point of a season since the Fabulous Five era of the early 1970s.

“If we just keep winning, everything will work itself out,” Smith said. “That’s the main thing — we’re just going to keep getting wins.”

UH’s last streak of eight games or better was at the start of the 2004-05 season. Eran Ganot’s team continues to do it without second-leading scorer Aaron Valdes, who missed his third straight game with a turf-toe injury. Fleming played ably in his stead and UH was efficient from both the field (54.2 percent) and the free-throw line (84.2 percent).

The Rainbows saw a 10-point lead cut to two at the break and Davis drew even early in the second half, but the Rainbows asserted control and went up double digits down the stretch behind their disruptive guard play.

Smith and point guard Roderick Bobbitt each had four steals. Bobbitt added nine points and seven assists.

“Every game is tough. Davis is no different,” Ganot said. “We are very fortunate. Davis came in here playing well, two teams coming in here with win streaks.

“We took a hit. We were excited that the crowd was tremendous. It fuels us at times, sometimes gets us too excited.”

Coming off a two-game road sweep last week, UH benefited from a single game week, while Davis (7-11, 2-3) eked out a narrow home win on Thursday and had to fly out to the islands on Friday. Up next is Long Beach State (9-12, 3-3) next Saturday in another single-game week.

Davis coach Jim Les acknowledged fatigue was an issue.

“We did a lot of good things,” Les said. “I thought for the most part we handled their pressure. We got to the spots we identified. We wanted to attack the post and we did that.”

Behind forward Josh Fox, Davis tried to bully UH inside at one end, while at the other they hit the Rainbows with plenty of zone defense, daring them to play pop-a-shot from the outside. UH wound up with 10 3-pointers.

Fox powered his way to 18 first-half points among his career-high 25 to go with eight rebounds.

“He hit some tough shots,” said Jankovic, who had a solid first half himself with 16 points. “The ball came to him, we didn’t get some rebounds. We kind of had to focus more on him.”

Smith tapped into some inner well of energy in the second half, blocking shots and diving for loose balls. A poor outside shooter by reputation, he even hit two 3-pointers and wound up with a career-high scoring output for the second straight week.

“I’m feeling pretty good,” Smith said. “Just making some shots. Making a lot more shots since A.V.’s been out. Just been trying to be aggressive. Thank God the ball’s been dropping for me.”

After Davis drew even to start the second half, Sai Tummala put UH back up with a 3-pointer with 16 minutes left, and Fleming followed with a deep corner 3 and a baseline take for an eight-point lead.

The Rainbows turned to their guards — Bobbitt, Fleming and Smith — to keep the advantage around double digits while Jankovic sat with his third foul.

“I was mad at myself, the third foul was stupid,” Jankovic said. “I wasn’t worried at all. I always say we have a deep team.”

Center Stefan Jovanovic provided some quality relief off the bench, including a rejection of Davis center Neal Monson.

Meanwhile, Fox was unable to dominate the second period as he did the first.

“We wanted our perimeter guys to make that post player at least feel you,” Ganot said. “That was the difference, actually, because you saw Rod and Quincy, in the middle of the second half, start to do that. And it can make those guys uncomfortable. We have some guys who can get there and recover.”

Jankovic re-entered the game with under eight minutes left and promptly hit two free throws to extend the lead to its largest to that point, 66-53.

Fleming hit a timely 3-pointer with 3:25 to play to keep the hosts in control up 16.

Former Hawaii coach Riley Wallace watched the game from baseline seating and was recognized at halftime. He received a round of applause.