In a paint-ball battle, the University of Hawaii men’s basketball team went splat in a 67-60 loss at UC Santa Barbara.

The Gauchos dominated the paint — outscoring the Rainbow Warriors 46-22 — before 2,764 in the Thunderdome on the UCSB campus.

The ’Bows entered Thursday in third place in the Big West behind co-leaders Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton. But LBSU edged UC Davis, while Fullerton lost to UC Riverside, altering the standings. Going into Saturday’s final day of the Big West regular season, LBSU (11-3) has clinched a share of the league title and the No. 1 seed in next week’s league tournament. Fullerton (10-4) can earn a co-title if it beats UC Davis, providing LBSU loses to UC Riverside.

The ’Bows (9-5) can finish in a tie for second with a win over Cal State Northridge and a loss by Fullerton. Riverside (9-5) and UH are tied for third.

“Right now, that’s not so much on the mind as playing better basketball and going strong into the tournament,” UH coach Eran Ganot said of the standings.

The ’Bows closed to 58-57 on Kamaka Hepa’s fifth 3-pointer of the game with 2:25 to play. But then the Gauchos scored six in a row to reclaim control. Miles Norris capped the run with a putback of Calvin Wishart’s missed jumper.

“The biggest rebounds of the game were theirs,” Ganot said, “and, obviously, the free-throw line. You could sit there and say they’re the hottest team in the league and they’re at home. But we had a chance to win the game and we didn’t, and you can look at that down the stretch.”

UCSB grabbed nine offensive rebounds — three each by Norris and Amadou Sow — and scored 12 second-chance points.

The Gauchos, who have won five in a row, were 1-for-12 on 3s but connected on 67.6% of their 2-point baskets.

“The paint was the difference in the game,” Ganot said. “We’ve been annihilated inside for a stretch here with little resistance. We missed some front ends of 1-and-1s. We missed some key block-outs. The separation came at the free-throw line and the block-outs late. And then we took a couple bad shots in the last couple minutes. You can’t do that on the road. You can’t do that late in games.”

After hitting two of three free throws in the first half, the Gauchos were 12-for-13 after the intermission. Josh Pierre-Louis, a 6-4 guard, was 6-for-7 on free throws.

In the first half, the ’Bows committed 14 turnovers, leading to 13 UCSB points. They lost the ball three times in the second half.

Hepa, who left Saturday’s game with an apparent ankle injury, was back in the lineup on Thursday, scoring a game-high 19 points and grabbing seven rebounds. Jerome Desrosiers added 15 points and JoVon McClanahan contributed 13. But the four UH reserves combined for two points. The Gauchos’ bench scored 15 points.

Josh Pierre-Louis scored 14 points to lead UCSB.

The outcome was emphatically sealed when Sow rejected McClanahan’s driving shot and recovered the ball with 9.8 seconds left.

“We got out-competed in critical stretches in this game, and that’s not acceptable,” Ganot said.