Meilani McBee sees nothing but green lights when she takes the floor.

The University of Hawaii sophomore’s classification as a shooting guard is more than a label on the roster, it’s a directive laid out by the Rainbow Wahine coaches.

“Shoot,” UH coach Laura Beeman said of her instructions to McBee when she’s summoned off the bench. “That’s it for Meilani. Shoot.”

McBee filled the role — and the net — last Saturday in a career-best performance against Cal State Fullerton and will look to maintain her touch from 3-point range in UH’s second road trip of the Big West season.

The Rainbow Wahine (5-8, 3-1 BWC) departed for California on Thursday and will face Long Beach State (7-7, 2-2) on Saturday at the Walter Pyramid. They’ll close the holiday weekend at Cal State Northridge (4-11, 3-2) on Monday at Premier America Credit Union Arena.

UH enters the trip tied with UC Santa Barbara for second place in the conference, one game behind UC Irvine (12-3 ,4-0), after splitting last week’s homestand.

After seeing an 18-point first-half lead evaporate in a 60-57 loss to UC San Diego, the Wahine held off a Cal State Fullerton comeback last Saturday led by McBee’s career-high 22 points.

She took 13 of her 14 field-goal attempts from behind the 3-point line and made a career-high six, UH’s highest total since Amy Atwell hit six against Baylor in last year’s NCAA Tournament.

“When Meilani starts hitting shots, it opens up so many other things for our offense,” Beeman said. “To see her have that kind of success, it was really gratifying for me just to see the smile on her face, hear from her mom, and watch that happen, because she’s put a lot of work into it.”

McBee hit eight 3-pointers in UH’s first six games, but went 0-for-12 in a five-game stretch. She connected twice in the loss to UC San Diego and took some extra shots prior to the Cal State Fullerton game.

“It is fun when it goes in,” McBee said of her assignment. “When it doesn’t I just have to know to just keep shooting the ball, and know my team trusts me to shoot the ball.

“(After a miss) you just have to forget about it and think the next one you shoot will go in.”

She started 1-for-4 in the first half against Cal State Fullerton and hit two in the third quarter, draining the second after the Titans had trimmed a 13-point halftime deficit to five and added another to start the fourth quarter.

“The third quarter has been a little bit of our Achilles’ heel, where we’ve let a little bit of our momentum leave, and when that happens we get really flat,” Beeman said. “For her to hit that shot when she did and open the fourth and hit another one, it gave us that momentum that we needed.”

She dropped two more to help UH pull away and also set a career high on defense with four steals.

“Because of my lack of shooting the past few games I’ve been focusing my defense to strengthen my offense,” McBee said.

McBee signed with UH out of Kennewick (Wash.) High School and followed the path of her aunt, former UH standout Tondi (Redden) von Oelhoffen, to Manoa. She opened this season by playing against her cousin, Oregon State guard Talia von Oelhoffen.

“Just having the knowledge that Tondi has taught me has just been great going into college,” McBee said.

Along with the basketball aspects of playing at UH, “she told me all about the beaches and how much fun I’ll have, and I’ve been having fun while I’m here. It’s been great.”

UH swept its first road trip of the Big West schedule with wins at UC Davis and Cal Poly to close 2022. Although the Wahine have a full week between games, Beeman doesn’t consider it a bye given next week’s compressed schedule.

Saturday’s game will start a run of four games in eight days, with UH opening another homestand on Thursday against UC Irvine.

“It doesn’t give you a bye when you have to cram games on the back side,” Beeman said. “I think the girls are going to be ready. I think they’re prepared. We’re trying to manage minutes, and we have to be careful when we do that so we don’t get crazy lineups.

“Bottom line, I think the girls are just excited to continue to play and hopefully we can build off of what we saw on Saturday night.”