Under normal circumstances, today you’d be reading in this space reflections on the University of Hawaii’s victories this week on the volleyball and basketball courts.

But other recent events dictate we look at a different court, the one of public opinion.

It’s even more negative for UH’s athletic department than before Friday’s town square flogging euphemistically called an information briefing for the state Senate.

It’s obviously not good at all for the program’s image, and it’s yet another blow that will hurt tangible things like fundraising and recruiting and intangible ones like the spirit of a fanbase in distress.

People are disgusted with UH (for rampant claims of mismanagement and harming student-athletes) or the lawmakers (for meddling with UH’s affairs when it pleases them, but not expediting a new stadium), or both. And now the whole world knows, if it didn’t already.

“Todd Graham” was trending on Twitter, and not because people think the UH football coach is a swell guy and — despite the desires of many Warriors faithful — not because he’s fired.

That’s not happening, because seemingly the only thing everyone agrees upon is this: This is not a popularity contest. You don’t get to vote him off the island.

What happens next is up to the university’s Board of Regents, which is what it should’ve been in the first place without all this sideshow. But, like most other large government and corporate entities, things at UH move very slowly. This is compounded by the rest of the world now speeding along at the pace of the half-second it takes to press send (especially that court of public opinion).

So, we are spared, at least for now, from needing to get real deep into the weeds of yet another court, the kind with lawyers and judges and arguments about how contracts should be interpreted.

That’s what it’s going to take if you want Graham and — for the truly blood-thirsty among you — his higher-ups to be fired immediately.

Not hours of emotional accusations. Not a one-sided ambush disguised as an information briefing. Not a petition. Not because Graham might prefer a unique-tasting cola to fruit punch.

If some of the more serious allegations are proven true, yes, of course, this coach doesn’t belong at this job.

Words like “abuse” and “racist” get thrown around too easily these days, oftentimes without a lot of thought. Although specific allegations of such were leveled at Graham and UH on Friday in sometimes compelling video and written testimony, firing for cause would quite possibly mean a long, expensive legal battle. Anybody up for another Gib Arnold fiasco?

And in that court, it’s one thing to know something is true, and another to prove it.

I’ve written before what I think has been obvious to many for some time — that hiring Graham was a mistake by the athletic director.

But a fireable offense? David Matlin is the same AD who hired Nick Rolovich; if you don’t agree that was a home run maybe you can at least consider it a ground-rule double, what with the 10-win season in 2019 (the one that got him hired away by a program with more resources and opportunity).

Matlin also somehow got a stadium built on campus faster than anyone since Les Murakami waved his magic wand back in the 1980s.

But did Matlin move quickly and strongly enough in addressing complaints about Graham, especially from student-athletes?

He said Friday that he avoided making public statements about how he was handling it — part of that being long days devoted to meetings with student-athletes and staff — because of privacy issues. That’s fair, but only to a point.

It’s true that every minute someone has to spend talking about how hard he’s working on something is a minute he’s not working on it. But fans and other stakeholders hungered for more assurance from the AD, and patience is not a virtue of the 24-hour news cycle.

Many who don’t like other of his hires will disagree, but I view the overall job Matlin has done in his six-plus years at this post like that of a cornerback who has a solid game that goes largely unnoticed, covering a tough receiver. But the one time he gets burned for a long TD pass gets replayed over and over.

As for the lawmakers, I stand by what I wrote before the briefing that it was right for them to step in. But the way the hearing was executed was bush league.

The meeting was announced on Dec. 31, and the UH officials say they weren’t invited until Tuesday. Then the “no public testimony” note on the agenda was changed to written testimony would be accepted on Wednesday. Finally, the school was not told there would be video testimony until “just before the briefing,” according to UH spokesman Dan Meisenzahl.

There was plenty of written testimony submitted in support of Graham and UH. But it was not reflected in any of the live-streamed video.

All of that is too much to attribute to the slow-moving wheels of government.

Yes, the school’s chain of command needed to be held accountable. But when UH president David Lassner protested that the videos were “cherry-picked,” he was stating fact.

The lawmakers could have even just pretended to be fair and still accomplished what they did Friday — which was next to nothing other than getting the issue onto the BOR’s agenda.