It’s an open question what happens beyond that as the 11th-year program leader approaches the end of the final season on his contract.<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The second-seeded Hawaii men’s basketball team awaits an opponent to be determined in the Big West tournament semifinals Friday at Lee’s Family Forum in Henderson, Nev.
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UH (22-8) lost a chance for a share of the Big West regular-season championship with its senior night loss to Long Beach State on Saturday but needs just two wins for its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015-16, Eran Ganot’s first season as head coach
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Ganot is coaching out the final year of his contract and first-year UH Athletic Director told Spectrum News that he is having “great conversations” with Ganot on the future of the program
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The 2025-26 season saw attendance rebound somewhat from a slumping trend the last few years<\/p>\n
After UH lost 84-75 to Long Beach State on senior night Saturday<\/a> to fall short of picking up just the fourth regular-season conference championship in program history, Spectrum News asked first-year UH Athletic Director Matt Elliott his approach on the Ganot situation heading into Henderson.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I’ve always said that I’m never going to talk about individual personnel matters, but we’re already in the place where we’re having great conversations and trying to figure out our future together,\u201d Elliott replied. \u201cSo I think we\u2019re in a good place.\u201d<\/p>\n Eleventh-year Hawaii coach Eran Ganot seen Saturday in the 2025-26 regular-season finale against Long Beach State at the Stan Sheriff Center. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n Elliott, who is also in discussions with football coach Timmy Chang on a contract extension<\/a>, stood and clapped for UH\u2019s season dedication video on the Stan Sheriff Center video screen and bestowed lei on the team\u2019s six seniors.<\/p>\n UH (22-8) has matched the second-highest win total of the Ganot era and is in the Big West semifinals for the third time in five years, but has not made a BWC title game since Ganot\u2019s first season of 2015-16. UH won three tournament games that year for the title, but the Rainbow Warriors are 2-7 in the event since, plus a stunning failure to qualify at all in 2024-25.<\/p>\n Had UH won Saturday, an on-court title ceremony had been prepared. But for UH to cut down any nets now, it will have to win two tournament games and make its first NCAA Tournament appearance since Ganot’s magical debut year that included many inherited players from the previous regime.<\/p>\n Second-seeded UH faces one of No. 3 Cal State Fullerton, No. 6 UC Davis or No. 7 UC Santa Barbara in a 5:30 p.m. Hawaii time semifinal Friday.<\/p>\n Elliott has myriad factors to consider whether UH wins two games and reaches the NCAA Tournament, gets to the finals for the second time in the Ganot era or goes one-and-done. UH is preparing to enter the much tougher Mountain West Conference next season.<\/p>\n Then-interim AD Lois Manin decided last spring to allow Ganot to enter the final year of his contract coming off a 15-16 season. Ganot\u2019s response was a drastic overhaul through the NCAA transfer portal using upward of $1 million in Name, Image and Likeness money from private donations.<\/p>\n Elliott, who formally assumed his position in July, said Ganot\u2019s transformed team proved it can compete with any team in the conference; UH earned a season split or better with every BWC foe.<\/p>\n \u201cJust extraordinarily proud of this team to come together with so many new players to build that chemistry over a relatively short amount of time,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cTribute to the coaching staff to doing that extremely well, and then our players are buying in and representing Hawaii in such a wonderful way. (It) would have been amazing to cap it off with a win tonight, but at the end of the day, to accomplish what they did, finish second get the double bye in the tournament, just incredibly proud of this team.\u201d<\/p>\n Hawaii Athletic Director Matt Elliott, right, hugged Rainbow Warriors wing Dre Bullock during his senior ceremony Saturday. (Spectrum News\/Brian McInnis)<\/p>\n With a better on-floor product that included a crowd-engaging big man in Isaac \u201cBig Fish\u201d Johnson and a high-flying finisher in wing Dre Bullock \u2014 and the Rainbow Warriors sitting at or near the top of the conference standings throughout the regular season \u2014 UH saw a moderate reversal of the slumping attendance trend<\/a> of recent years.<\/p>\n Last season, UH averaged 3,095 through the turnstiles and 4,919 tickets issued, approaching the low point of turnstile attendance for non-COVID-19-impacted seasons in the Stan Sheriff Center in 2009-10 (2,873 average).<\/p>\n With 19 home dates in the books, the averages grew to 3,370 turnstile and 5,044 tickets issued.<\/p>\n Coming off UH\u2019s first missed conference tournament since 2010, turnout started off very slowly, with fewer than 2,000 people passing through the turnstiles for the first two official home games against East Texas A&M and Mississippi Valley State \u2014 even after UH played Oregon to the final buzzer in the Nov. 4. season opener in Eugene.<\/p>\n Crowds steadily grew through conference play and \u201cAC Carter Night\u201d<\/a> against UC Santa Barbara drew season highs of 8,103 through the turnstiles and 9,246 tickets issued as program legend Anthony \u201cAC\u201d Carter became just the second player in program history to have their jersey retired.<\/p>\n Senior night drew 5,468 through the turnstiles among 6,512 tickets issued.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Ganot\u2019s teams have consistently achieved academically and been active in the community<\/a>. His personal passion for recognizing past teams and players helped lead to Carter\u2019s jersey retirement and that of his old boss Bob Nash in 2019.<\/p>\n Should UH fall short of winning it all in its final Big West tournament appearance before leaving for the Mountain West, the season might not be over.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve submitted that bid to host the NIT and I think it does come down to the ultimate numbers and metrics, but we have a very good chance to be able to host an NIT,\u201d Elliott said. \u201cBut yeah, we’d like to be in that NCAA Tournament, so let’s do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Brian McInnis<\/a>\u00a0covers the state\u2019s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.\u00a0He can be reached at\u00a0brian.mcinnis@<\/a>charter.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HONOLULU \u2014 The Hawaii men\u2019s basketball team goes all-in on its high-stakes season in the Las Vegas desert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[19375,6632,6631,19376,1815,2289,131,133,132,127,136],"class_list":["post-212993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-app-college-sports","tag-app-sports","tag-app-top-stories","tag-brian-mcinnis","tag-college","tag-hawaii","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-sports","tag-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Hawaii_Athletics_Elliott3_MBB_HI_0309.jpeg\")
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