According to lore, the best part of an Army West Point football player’s day is the 90 minutes of practice.

“You wish everybody was like that,” said Hawaii coach Nick Rolovich, whose Rainbow Warriors play host to Army in tonight’s nationally televised game at Aloha Stadium. “That’s not always the case. Our guys like to practice, too.”

It should be an intriguing rematch between the participants. In last year’s game in New York, the Warriors fell short, 28-21, when Cole McDonald’s final pass was deflected by linebacker Cole Christiansen.

“It’s like the whole game was back and forth,” Army fullback Connor Slomka said. “We won the game by the length of Cole (Christiansen’s) index figure.”

Army quarterback Kelvin Hopkins said: “That final play with (Christiansen) batting that play down over the middle speaks what this program is all about: playing to the whistle, and never counting yourself out.”

But 14 months later, there no longer is intrigue to the Black Knights’ triple-option offense. Slomka indicated the rematch will be more challenging.

“They don’t get fooled as easily, they’re normally in the right spot,” Slomka said of opponents’ recall. “Because one of the best things about the triple option is it can break teams down, and that’s when teams get out of position, and that’s when big things happen. Whenever you go against teams that are familiar with it, those things don’t happen as much. I know they’re going to have a really good game plan. They’re familiar with us, as we are with them.”

After losing five in a row, the Black Knights have won their past two games to improve to 5-6. They had a bye last week, and another one is scheduled for next week in advance of the Dec. 14 game against Navy.

“We want to finish strong,” Hopkins said. “The season didn’t go exactly how we wanted it to. But you can always finish how you want to. That’s what we’re trying to do now.”

The Warriors close their regular season with this celebration of 23 seniors. The Warriors insist they will neither hold back nor look ahead to next week’s Mountain West championship game against Boise State in Boise.

“We’re playing to win every game,” McDonald said. “It’s one game at a time, one week at a time. We’re going to treat Army the same as we do Boise. No matter the stage, we’re going to go out there and execute.”

McDonald added: “This is definitely a grudge game for me personally and for this team. We went down there, played a good game, and came up short last year. We’re looking to come back and finish on top this game. They’re going to be disciplined and execute very well. We have to trust the schemes and the coaching and go out there and just play football.”