The Hawaii basketball team may not become a great second-half team overnight, but there’s plenty of room for improvement going into tonight’s nonconference finale against Howard.

UH (8-4) has been outscored only twice in 12 first halves — in losses to Nevada and Utah — but has been outdone in eight second halves. The two most egregious of those just happened in the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.

The Rainbow Warriors went 1-2 for sixth place in the DHC in large part because they could not match their competitive first-half play after intermission in losses to then-No. 6 Miami and Princeton. Both games were tied at the half but UH was outscored by 18 and 14 points, respectively, after the break.

“It’s something that’s reared its ugly head enough times that it’s clearly an issue,” UH coach Eran Ganot said. “We’ve been flat. We’ve got to impose our will with our energy. Our energy coming out of the half has got to be better.”

In terms of point differential with its opponents, only once (vs. Nevada) has UH done better in the second half relative to the first. UH got outscored by just three after halftime that game, after being outdone by 10 in the first period.

But that was the exception. The team became aware of the problem as early as the season-opening Rainbow Classic when the ’Bows jumped well ahead of North Dakota and Troy then held on tight to claim wins.

“I’m not really sure what it is. Just coming out stagnant after the halftime, guys get complacent as a team, not really remembering what we did in the first half that put us in the position we’re in,” guard Brocke Stepteau said. “So I think we just need to work on that; that’s been our biggest issue, the second-half starts.”

Associate head coach Adam Jacobsen ticked off rebounding margin, opponents’ improved field-goal percentage and free-throw attempts and UH’s uptick in empty possessions (turnovers and poor shots) as factors.

“The combination of all those things in the second half has not been good,” Jacobsen said. “We’re aware of it. We’ve talked about it. We’ve worked on it. I think it’s one of those things, that it’s not an easy fix. It’s about our players just having a better focus and intensity level, and doing a better job of all the things we talked about for 40 minutes.”

UH set season lows in 3-point attempts and makes in the 77-63 Christmas morning loss to Princeton, going 2-for-11 from long range.

But, working in UH’s favor: It is 3-0 this season coming off a loss, and has won the following game by an average margin of 10.

Meanwhile, the Howard Bison (3-12) of the MEAC are 0-11 in true road games.

Howard got a rude welcome at the Sheriff two seasons ago.

Aaron Valdes had a triple-double and Roderick Bobbitt scored 31 in UH’s 94-59 rout. The Bison had the leading scorer in the country, James Daniel III, who scored his average of 29 points but shot 8-for-24 to do it.

Daniel is now a graduate transfer at Tennessee. In his stead, Howard has two dynamite scorers — guards RJ Cole (21.6 ppg) and Charles Williams (18.4).

The two erupted for 42 and 30 points, respectively, in an 80-75 win over UNC-Wilmington in El Paso, Texas, last Friday, its first victory over a D-I team this season.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever played a game that came off an (opponent’s) win where two players scored 72 of their 80 points,” Jacobsen said.

“It’s really going to be about us doing a good job on those two guys. It’s not going to just be one-on-one matchups,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re in our proper help positions. I do think we match up well, but it’s going to be a good test of how we can really take away two very good scorers.”

The 6-foot-1 freshman Cole gets his points in transition, off of isolation and some ball screens. The 6-6 sophomore Williams is more of a catch-and-shoot player and seizes on transition 3s and a lesser amount of isolation.

Forward Mike Thomas is back into the UH scoring lead (11.3) after breaking out of a slump with 22 points vs. Princeton.

UH has never lost to a MEAC team in 15 all-time games.