For Jack Purchase, it was the day after the big holiday and he exchanged his shooting slump for a hot hand from 3-point land.

“Christmas was yesterday,” said the University of Hawaii basketball player from Australia, which is across the international dateline, and hence, a day ahead of the islands.

So, on Saturday, he talked to family back home while they ate “all that good food” at Christmas dinner, and “I’m eating Sodexo (UH dorm food), which is good, but not as good.”

Then on Sunday, Purchase extended his celebration, knocking down five 3-pointers on his way to a game-high 17 points and shooting his way out of what he said might be the worst slump he’s ever had.

It was the boost UH needed to break a four-game losing streak and salvage seventh place in the Diamond Head Classic with a 60-46 win over Southern Mississippi.

Yes, the Golden Eagles — a team, which like UH, is dealing with NCAA sanctions — are bad. Very bad.

They shot 32.7 percent from the floor for the game, and turned over the ball 18 times. Hawaii was better, but not much at 36.5 and 15.

The Rainbow Warriors won because they finally got off to a decent start, and Purchase and Brocke Stepteau were hot from 3-point range early.

It’s hard to tell if this team is going to win very much in conference, but this much is evident: UH is going to have plenty of problems if it doesn’t make 3-pointers consistently, and also get better at mid-range and closer.

One problem is even good shooting teams can’t always depend on long-range accuracy, and a percentage of 37.5 from within the arc isn’t going to cut it against most teams. While the Big West is by no means a superconference, there aren’t going to be a lot of opponents that miss at the rate of Southern Miss.

On this day, though, mediocre offense and decent defense was good enough to win. A few fans even showed up on Christmas morning (probably about one-tenth of the 5,769 listed next to the word “Attendance” on the stat sheet).

One of them was the university president, who cheered on the Rainbows next to athletic director David Matlin.

“These guys need some love,” David Lassner said.

They call this kind of crowd “friends and family.” But some, like longtime season ticket holders Chet and Vivien Okayama of Manoa, would see their blood relatives later in the day. “The family understands. We’re always going to the game, we’re big fans.”

They’re both UH graduates, and Chet has been a fan since his high school days at Honokaa when he followed the Fabulous Five the best he could from the Big Island.

“Basically, we just love basketball and we’ve made a lot of friends over here,” said Chet, a social worker by day and singer and guitarist by night with Funkshun and other local bands. “We just like to support the team, no matter what. But it has been kind of hard the past couple of games.”

Okayama then looked at the empty row in front of him. “Usually it’s a big group over here, and very vocal,” he said. “We’re trying to be patient.”

Coach Eran Ganot said the Rainbows appreciated that anyone at all was willing to show up at 9:30 on Christmas morning.

“Our guys felt that,” Ganot said. “They performed in respect of that.”

The players “did a great job of getting to sleep early,” said Ganot, who admitted that he was up until “probably” 2 a.m.

In reality, though, what father of a young child who gets to celebrate Hanukkah (which started Saturday night this year) and Christmas, like 5-year-old Zeza does, sleeps early on Dec. 24?

Maybe home-court advantage is amplified on holidays, because UH has now won on Christmas Day four years in a row and six times in the eight-year existence of the Diamond Head Classic. Perhaps that is skewed a bit by Hawaii never having made it to the tournament’s championship final, but it’s still worth noting.

Some casual fans look at Christmas as the start of basketball season, and this was a team in desperate need of a reset. And it will likely need more as the season progresses and growing pains continue for a young and inexperienced group.

But fans like the Okayamas remain loyal.

“Today looks like it will turn out to be a nice gift,” Chet said at halftime.

And it did.

“We braced ourselves because it’s a new team,” Vivien said. “And we’re always hopeful.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529- 4783. His blog is at Hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.