For Hawaii’s basketball opponents, it is a challenge to shoot par.

This season, five teams’ leading scorers were held under their Big West average against the Rainbow Warriors.

Long Beach State’s Deshuan Booker, who is scoring 23.7 points per Big West game, averaged 12.5 in two UH games. The ’Bows held UC Davis guard TJ Shorts II, who was named the Big West’s top player last season, to 11 points — 4.6 below his league average. Cal Poly’s Donovan Fields averaged 16.1 points entering Thursday’s game in the Stan Sheriff Center. He finished with 11 points on 4-for-13 shooting before fouling out.

The ’Bows’ defensive fortunes, particularly against opposing guards, are attributed largely to point-of-attack defiance and rotational coverages.

“We really have each other’s backs defensively as a team,” UH coach Eran Ganot said.

In defeating Cal Poly, the ’Bows were able to speed-bump the drives into the lane. Centers Zigmars Raimo, Dawson Carper and Mate Colina teamed with wing defenders to clutter the low post. “More than anything, we were pretty locked in,” Ganot said. “We didn’t have many breakdowns, especially in the first half.”

The Mustangs hit seven of 26 shots in the first half, including two of nine from behind the 3-point stripe.

In holding the Mustangs to 54 points — 7.8 below their Big West average — Ganot indicated the ’Bows made a “step in the right direction” to resurrecting the harassing defenses of previous seasons.

“To be back,” Ganot said, “you kind of have to have a pattern of behavior, if that makes sense. It starts off with a step, and hopefully you can build off it. … We still have more to do.”

UC Riverside guard Dikymbe Martin has had the most success against the ’Bows. In their last meeting, Martin scored 19 points on 8-for-10 shooting. UH and Riverside meet tonight at about 8 in the Stan Sheriff Center.

“They have good talent, they have good personnel, and they do the things we talk about in terms of balance,” Ganot said. “They have a dynamic guard with Dikymbe Martin. They’re one of the top two or three rebounding teams in the league. They’re a dangerous team. They’re good, and they’re well coached.”

The ’Bows counter with an offense that leads the league with a plus-2.8 turnover margin per game. The ’Bows committed single-digit turnovers in four of the past five games.

“The rebounding is everybody but it starts with your bigs,” Ganot said. “The turnovers, it’s everybody but it starts with your guards. Our point of attack with Brocke (Stepteau) and Drew (Buggs) is, I think, right now in league play at 3-to-1 in assist-to-turnover ratio, which is phenomenal. You have a guy like Jack (Purchase) in the 4 who you can play through and he doesn’t turn it over. Zigmars has turned it over less than one time a game in league. I think that’s something that’s helped us.”