After punching its ticket to the NCAA Tournament on Saturday, the University of Hawai‘i men's basketball team was able to revel in its accomplishment on Sunday, taking in the selection show as a team.
On Monday, the Rainbow Warriors were back at work. Since winning the Big West Conference tournament, the 'Bows have remained in Las Vegas, where they were able to hold a team workout and practice on UNLV's campus.
Hawai‘i has shifted its focus to its matchup in the NCAA Tournament: Arkansas, one of the country's top teams. Hawai‘i was given the 13 seed in the 16-team NCAA West Region, while Arkansas is the No. 4 seed. Of all 68 teams that qualified for The Big Dance, Arkansas was ranked the 16th overall seed by the selection committee, while Hawai‘i was the 54th overall seed. On Tuesday, Hawai‘i departed for Portland, Ore., the site of the game, which tips off at 10:25 a.m. HST on Thursday. The contest will also be televised live on TBS.
While Hawai‘i is playing in its first NCAA Tournament in 10 years and sixth appearance overall, Arkansas enters with a much richer pedigree. The Razorbacks have played in the NCAA Tournament 37 times, winning it all in 1994. In the 2020s alone, the Razorbacks only missed the tournament in 2024.
The Razorbacks are coached by John Calipari, one of the legends in the sport. Calipari arrived at Arkansas in 2024, which was preceded by a 15-year run at the University of Kentucky. Calipari has become one of the faces of the one-and-done era, which began in 2005 when the NBA required draft prospects to play at least one year after high school. Calipari made it his specialty to recruit talented freshmen, coach them for a year, then send them off to the NBA.
This season, Calipari's one-and-done talent is star freshman point guard Darius Acuff Jr., who is averaging 22.9 points and 6.5 assists per game while shooting 44.5% on 3-pointers and 80.4% on free throws. By contrast, the Rainbow Warriors rely heavily on experience. Four of their six seniors are starters, while the only other two players in their eight-man rotation are juniors. The 'Bows remain confident in their team heading into what's sure to be a formidable challenge.
"Seeing things in the headlines with their point guard, Acuff, obviously a great player looking to go to the league. And obviously, anybody that's in college basketball should know Calipari, so obviously we all knew that. That's just something that's really kind of fun thinking about, 'Oh, Calipari is gonna be doing scout on you.' It's just kind of a fun thing to think about that," Hawai‘i guard Hunter Erickson said. "Anybody in college basketball, those are the kind of games you want to play. With players like that, with a coach like that, I think I'm really confident in the team we got, and we'll see what we can put out there."
Eran Ganot was a 34-year-old rookie head coach the last time he led the Rainbow Warriors to the NCAA Tournament in 2016, which was highlighted by the program's first-ever tournament win, a 77-66 victory over California. The 'Bows hadn't sniffed the postseason since then, until a veteran-heavy squad has led the program back. Ganot's contract is set to expire after the season, though neither he or the school have announced future plans. For now, he plans to live in the moment, which happens to be college basketball's biggest stage.
"There's a balance to it. Enjoy the journey. Fight like hell to get continue to get better. It's served us well," Ganot said. "Enjoy it. There's nothing like the NCAA Tournament nationally, globally. It's special, and they'll feel it, and they deserve to take it all in, and so we're gonna balance that. We're gonna do that, and then we're gonna get back to the task at hand and work to get better. We have a couple days, we have to improve. We're prepared for any scenario. We know it's gonna be challenging, but this is special, and we're gonna honor it as such."
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Christian Shimabuku can be reached at christian@alohastatedaily.com.
