For the first time in 10 years, the University of Hawai‘i men's basketball team is NCAA Tournament bound.
During Sunday's NCAA selection show, it was revealed that the Rainbow Warriors will be the 13 seed in the 16-team West Region. The 'Bows will face SEC champion Arkansas on Thursday in Portland. Tipoff time is set for 10:25 a.m. HST on TBS.
Hawai‘i clinched its NCAA Tournament ticket with a thrilling 71-64 victory over UC Irvine in the Big West tournament championship game on Saturday night in Henderson, Nev., punctuated by a two-handed Dre Bullock windmill dunk in the closing seconds.
Just a week prior, Hawai‘i had a chance to clinch the share of the Big West regular season title in its home finale against Long Beach State, which finished ninth in the conference standings at 6-14. The Rainbow Warriors squandered that opportunity with a loss to the Beach on senior night. UH finished second in the conference standings, allowing UC Irvine to win the regular season title outright.
The Rainbow Warriors entered conference tournament week with full knowledge that winning it would provide the ultimate prize — the program's first NCAA Tournament bid since 2016.
With a double bye straight to the conference semifinals, Hawai‘i clinched its spot in the championship game by handling Cal State Fullerton 78-63 on Friday.
On championship Saturday, the 'Bows leaned on their experience to get their most consequential win in a decade. UH features six seniors in its eight-man rotation, which was reduced to such after season-ending injuries to points guards Tanner Cuff and Aaron Hunkin-Claytor, as well as a midseason departure from forward Jalen Myers. Harry Rouhliadeff, the team captain and lone player on the roster who spent his entire career with the Rainbow Warriors, had a double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds. Meanwhile, Isaac "Big Fish" Johnson was named the tournament MVP after posting 22 points and seven rebounds. Bullock added 15 points, seven rebounds and four steals.
As three Hawai‘i seniors in Rouhliadeff, Johnson and Bullock sat on the press conference podium following their championship victory over UC Irvine, they all acknowledged how the disappointing Long Beach loss allowed them to refocus. They lost a championship that night, but wouldn't have won this one without it.
"If not getting a ring that night meant getting a ring tonight, I'll take it 100 times out of 100," Johnson said on Saturday. "We use that as fuel, and then we locked in this week. I think during practices, we got a little bit of our swag back. We joked around and we're happy, and got the mood back up, but we were locked in, which I think was the most important part. ... I think that game exposed us a little bit and showed us what we needed to fix."
Added Rouhliadeff: "That was probably was the best thing that could have happened to us. Just probably kept us grounded. Going into this tournament, we knew it was going to be hard. There's no doubt about that. This is such a competitive league, and I'm just so proud of the guys right now. I'm really lost for words at the moment, but I'm just so proud of our effort and our defensive toughness."
Said Bullock: "Probably the best thing that happened for us. We were kind of feeling ourselves a little bit during that run, but we learned from it. Watch film, grow from it. We brought our energy to Vegas and shifted gears quickly."
While the 2025-2026 Rainbow Warriors showed how much can change in a week, head coach Eran Ganot proved how much can change in a year. In the 2024-2025 season, the 'Bows went 15-16 overall and 7-13 in Big West play, missing the conference tournament entirely. Interim athletics director Lois Manin announced she would let Ganot coach out the final year of his contract without an extension. In turn, Ganot retooled his roster. Of the eight players who saw the floor on Saturday, only two were returnees from the previous season in Rouhliadeff and Gytis Nemeikša.
Per Ganot's contract, he would have earned a $25,000 bonus had the team clinched a share of the conference regular season title. As costly as the Long Beach State loss proved to be, the conference tournament win netted him a $15,000 bonus.
It was Ganot's first season at the helm in 2015-2016 that the Rainbow Warriors last went to the NCAA Tournament and earned the program's first-ever win at The Big Dance, a 77-66 upset victory over California. The 2025-2026 Rainbow Warriors face a steep challenge in Arkansas, led by talented freshman guard Darius Acuff Jr., who is averaging 22.7 points and 6.4 assists per game.
Ganot, who displayed a stoic demeanor in the final seconds of Saturday's Big West championship victory, was all smiles when the dust settled.
"Just wow. A lot of emotions go through you," Ganot said following the game. "I tell our guys all the time, the journey is all that floods through your mind, what these guys have been through this year and over the years.
"Knew it was going to be a battle. Could have gone either way. It's very humbling, but it's also a special moment when you do what you do with this group of kids, and do it against that type of competition. ... There's nothing like sitting on the bench or taking it all in watching these kids smile. That's undefeated. Nothing can ever pass that."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
