Catching up with Eran Ganot
The players on the University of Hawai’i basketball are not the only ones putting in extra work this summer.
New head coach Eran Ganot said there is still much work to complete in the next few months, including recruiting, scheduling and assigning specific duties to his assistant coaches.
“Our staff is now in place, in terms of our assistants, and our guys are pretty close,” Ganot said. “We still have a lot of recruiting to do, but our team is close to being complete and it’s an opportunity for us to get off to a good start.”
Ganot said he is still looking for recruits to fill the 2015-16 roster, but will also be looking at recruits for future seasons later this summer.
“There’s a lot of things going on (with recruiting),” he said. “We’re probably bringing some more guys up (to visit) and looking towards finishing the class. And then obviously getting organized in terms of our staff for being on the road in July. July is a big month where we can go out (and recruit).”
New assistant coaches Adam Jacobsen, Norm Parrish and Chris Acker will all be involved with recruiting, according to Ganot.
“I’ve always wanted well-rounded coaches,” Ganot said. “We’re going to have a point person in every area, but all our coaches will recruit, all our coaches will develop.”
Ganot described the 2015-16 schedule as “a work in progress.”
“We’ve made the calls we needed to make, we have the contacts we need to have, it’s just about finding the right dates and the fits and figuring out a way to do the best we can with where it’s at,” he said.
Note that this interview was conducted prior to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser report that UH officials have opted to pay a $90,000 buyout to withdraw from the 2015 Las Vegas Invitational. The withdrawal means the loss of four games – road games at Cal and at San Diego State, followed by two neutral site games at Las Vegas.
I supposewe can hope that Las Vegas already has someone in mind to fill the gap and that this was reviewed by Matlin prior to withdrawing UH from that tournament. Seems like an incomplete story.
I coudn’t make it to that Las Vegas tournament this year anyway.
Why an incomplete story? It is what it is until it’s announced who the replacements teams are. He could have mentioned he has teams lined up to fill the Vegas dates left open but they aren’t finalized as of yet. That would have been a plus for Matlin’s pr sake don’t you think? Ganot has his work cut out for him scheduling games but he’s good at that, he’s done it before and has contacts as we read.
Benjy and/or the prior administrations had scheduling challenges, but maybe could have looked more at academic impacts of their schedules ? But last year’s Jan 29 to Feb 7 schedule referred to below was due to the Big West schedule of four road games in ten days.
Excerpts from SA:
“We would like to avoid missing class time when we can,” he said, “and avoid having a seven-game-in-15-day stretch. It’s not ideal to play on (both) Thanksgiving Day and on Christmas Day.”
Ganot said he is trying to be mindful of the demand on his players leading up to final exams in early December and wants the nonconference schedule to be as spread out as possible.
“If you’re playing three Rainbow (Classic) games and then four Vegas games and then three Diamond Head (Classic) games, all in a short window, you’re obviously going to have big gaps,” Ganot said. “It’s best to have more balance there.”
“Under terms of the contract, UH was to have received $85,000 to play in the tournament. The buyout fee was listed at $90,000, plus a $30,000 penalty for late cancellation.” (SA, 6-16-15)
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” He is also said to have vetoed another road game during finals week.
The moves come on the heels of a decision two weeks earlier to bring the football team back from Wisconsin after playing Sept. 26 instead of remaining on the continent until the Oct. 3 game at Boise State, a planned three-day savings in missed class time.
Men’s basketball and football are two programs that rank traditionally high in missed class time at UH. It is not uncommon to miss upwards of 20 days each — basketball missed 22 — a considerable number for two programs not figuring in much postseason play recently.”
“This past basketball season we had a situation in which the team stayed on the mainland for nearly two weeks and missed about nine consecutive days of classes at the early part of the semester (late January-early February),” Ericson said. “Unfortunately, that’s a recipe for academic disaster.”
Ericson said, “I believe that (David) Matlin is dedicated to preventing similar academic hardships for all of our teams. With Hawaii’s geographic location and necessity of lengthy travel, I think that Matlin and associate AD (Carl) Clapp will be working very closely with the head coaches on scheduling and other measures to mitigate the academic downside of travel to the mainland for our student-athletes.
(F Lewis, 6-16)
Note cancellation fees of $90,000 plus another $30,000 .
Wow, that is a steep price for a Athletic Department is supposedly millions in the red. We are now looking at writing a $120,000 check to the Las Vegas Tournament AND passing up on the $85,000. From a business standpoint, that’s a total of $205,000 that needs to be made up. Actually $235,000 because Matlin said he can build it into a $30,000 gain.
Like it was mentioned in the previous day of comments, Matlin truly must have a Duke or Kentucky or Louisville lined up. That is the only way I can see the program making up such a financial loss with one “pay day” road game. Exciting possibilities!
Chuck; Ferd’s column says “UH is said to be talking to an ACC team.”
Hawaii returns a favor to Jamie Dixon … Pitt?
Thanks islandman, I missed that. I’m even more excited for the announcement now! Duke? Louisville? North Carolina? Those would be the three that could give us the best pay day. Maybe Pitt wants some pay BACK on us for last year and wants us at their place but I don’t think they have the same kind of money to pay like Duke or Louisville.
As akuhead2 said theres still some holes in the story so lets see what comes out. A road trip to ACC would still require missing two days of classes to get to East coast so the statement about saving five days of classes not completely accurate. It still saves two to three days of class time so I guess still a better situation from that standpoint. If UH can get the big pay day then worth it for sure.
Just watched the video. Mahalo to coach Ganot for updating WarriorInsider on the state of the program.
A co-worker (Cal grad) just said that Cal will be hyped as a top 10 team and one of the favorites for Pac 12 because they signed two “one-and-done” type of freshmans that supposed to be high impact. He said that UH would probably get blown but still would help UH’s RPI to keep Cal and SDSU on schedule. He did added that a experience UH team would be dangerous against a young Cal team that early in the season though. Thats even more reason for Matlin to find a elite ACC team to replace this.
Cal would be a great match. I saw ivan Rabb play in the Iolani Classic vs oak hill academy. Make it happen would love to see rabb vs Stefan
To cancel playing in a tournament like this may mean that Coach Ganot came across a better scheduling option. ACC or Pac 12 would be nice. Can’t wait to see what the final schedule looks like. Hopefully they are home games too.
Unfortunately, we were already in the process of making plans for the Las Vegas Tournament. We already had courtside seats and luckily did not book the rest of the trip.
Still waiting for the verbal commit that was to take place over the weekend or early this week. Any chatter on this?
Go Bows!
Only see that Quadree Smith 6-8, 250, committed to Providence on Jun 10.
Oh man, thats rough to hear about DaBoyz808. I hope and pray you can sell your tickets on ebay!
It makes me wonder if there were others who made travel plans and now in a bind. I bet some of the families of the players were planning to make the trip to Vegas and spend Thanksgiving with the team.
You know what, Ganot said in the news article that not a good idea to play on both Thanksgiving and Christmas but I think this time would of been fine because Vegas is a easy place for travel especially for the California families. Some of them could even drive it and I bet these California families was planning to watch the Cal and SDSU games in person too. I’m sure not all of them can afford trip to Hawaii for Christmas so they were probably looking real forward to the Vegas.
Education is important but so is family time. As a lot of people said already lets see what UH comes up with to make this decision make sense.
It looks like my story was incomplete. I was continuing the thread from the last Q update, and was thinking about the Las Vegas tournament guysand how difficult it might be to find someone to replace UH.
If it was us, and someone backed out on our tournament, it would not be fun scrambling to find a new team to fill the hole. I have faith that we can watch our own okoles, but would think it responsible that we see that Las Vegas has their own okoles covered before we just leave them in a learch. Bad reputation and all for us, on top of all the NCAA problems as well. But some real concern for the LV tournament as well. I would like to be invited back to LV, and apart from everything else as a fan, I like to visit LV too.
Not that our, UH’s, story was incomplete.
Still, I think we are in very good hands and assume the best.
I would however very much like to see that Matlin has reached out to the classrooms and professors here at UH to participate in accomodating the schedules of the teams. Perhaps paying for intermediary tutors that could focus on helping in accomodating test scheduling and papers and creating a syllabus specific for travel schedules. Hawaii is particularly different from other schools because of the travel, and it is unfair to the student-athletes to say that one side has to suffer because the other side can’t be talked to. It is important to win games AND it is important to do well in school. Standardizing a syllabus modification with a short list of things the professors can expect and a short list of how the tutors will help effect any changes would be beneficial to both grades and wins. I should say, grades and education and wins and peace of mind. Hawaii is unique. It is a wonderful thing. It is not too much to ask.
Right on Matlin. We know youre working your be hind off . Looking forward to an improved schedule with more home games would be great .
I bet whoever has Vegas tickets early on to see the tourney may not mind, it helps the sons schooling plus the parents/family/friends got more time on the tables, pulling arms or pressing buttons. lol
Thanks ChuckCheese. We’ll have to see if the hotel will take them back or see if my credit card can get involved.
If we think about it, the boys may have missed 3 days at the most by playing at the tourney and a couple of teams would e had an impact on our RPI.
I can’t see why our home airlines and sponsor (Hawaiian Air) doesn’t help out with travel for our boys? Maybe 20 seats at most including coaching staff. Boyd Gaming should be able to do the same. 10 to 12 rooms.
UH MBB scheduling has always been tough.. remember when Fab Five era was playing these teams in 1970-71?
D 3 Whittier W 81-72
D 4 Whittier W 87-82
D 19 Linfield W 96-69
D 23 Linfield W 106-79
D 26 New York! W 101-63
D 29 Michigan! W 83-76
D 30 Brigham Young! W 94-90
J 5 at Loyola L 104-111
J 7 at Rhode Island W 92-82
J 9 at St. John’s L 76-82
J 11 at Arizona State W 94-87
J 12 at Pepperdine W 103-88
J 15 Trinity (TX) W 94-74
J 16 Trinity (TX) W 105-67
J 22 Lewis & Clark W 91-76
J 23 Lewis & Clark W 121-75
J 29 Rhode Island W 97-67
J 30 Rhode Island W 96-74
F 4 at San Diego State L 95-107
F 6 at U.S. International W 63-61
F 12 Alaska-Fairbanks W 104-79
F 13 Alaska-Fairbanks W 75-58
F 19 Georgia Tech W 63-61
F 20 Georgia Tech W 91-62
F 26 Centenary W 98-74
F 27 Centenary L 66-67
M 22 vs. Oklahoma% W (2ot)88-87
M 24 vs. St. Bonaventure% L 64-73
Riley Wallace 2nd year:
N 25 Montana State@ W 96-80
N 27 Texas@ W 85-84
D 1 at Iona L 63-77
D 3 at St. John’s L 60-65
D 9 Tennessee Tech# W 98-58
D 10 Oregon# W 74-70
D 19 vs. Indiana State$ W 80-61
D 20 at San Francisco$ L 72-76
D 27 Yale! W 89-64
D 29 Purdue! W 72-69
D 30 Illinois! L 87-96
J 5 Air Force* W (2ot)83-81
J 7 Colorado State* L 55-62
J 12 at Utah* L 61-71
J 14 at Brigham Young* W 77-73
J 19 New Mexico* L 63-81
J 21 UTEP* W 87-72
J 26 San Diego State* W 65-62
J 28 Wyoming* L 59-64
J 31 at Air Force* L 79-86
F 2 at Wyoming* W 69-59
F 9 Utah* W 57-56
F 11 Brigham Young* W 68-66
F 16 at San Diego State* W 73-60
F 18 at Colorado State* L 56-57
M 2 at UTEP* L 62-65
M 4 at New Mexico* W 71-70
M 8 vs. Brigham Young^ W 72-69
M 10 vs. Colorado State^ L 46-50
M 16 at California% L 57-73
Riley Wallace 27 win team, with Savo
N 16 Norfolk State@ W 76-52
N 18 Drake@ W 74-63
N 23 vs. Mercer# W 89-72
N 24 vs. Colorado State# L 59-61
N 25 vs. Wisconsin# W 60-57
N 27 Northwestern State W 60-58
D 10 Alcorn State W 62-48
D 14 San Diego State L 58-61
D 19 Portland! W 75-68
D 21 Iona! W 67-56
D 22 Georgia! W 54-44
D 27 Fresno State* W 83-73
D 29 Nevada* W 58-40
J 3 at UTEP* W 70-68
J 5 at Boise State* W 64-62
J 10 Louisiana Tech* W 81-61
J 12 SMU* W 83-74
J 19 at San Jose State* L 53-57
J 24 at Rice* W 88-79
J 26 at Tulsa* W 90-82
J 31 Boise State* W 67-56
F 2 UTEP* W 75-60
F 7 at SMU* W 85-76
F 9 at Louisiana Tech* L 57-61
F 16 San Jose State* W 71-46
F 21 Tulsa* W 86-85
F 23 Rice* W 79-50
F 28 at Nevada* L 69-79
M 2 at Fresno State* W 82-79
M 7 vs. San Jose State^ W 71-56
M 8 vs. Nevada^ W 90-68
M 9 at Tulsa^ W 73-59
M 15 vs. Xavier% L 58-70
Which MBB program, Fab Five era, Riley era, Nash, Gib, Benjy or what we will see for Eran start first year? I think Eran, has the easier go, first year, a ready made team, if they work hard for themselves, they can do fine, Still early, early prediction, at end of BWC play or regular season UH will win 19 games, make a run at BWC tournament, title.. big IF.. IF the guys, can be disciplined.. Eran, might be quiet, and so is coaching staff more mentoring then shouting.. the guys have to be disciplined too. Wonder how Agent Zero, will reel in his act? Has to toe the line. I hope he does.. otherwise, Eran, just fills in puka with another guy.
Tough first year, however, let’s see the schedule.. ..comparable to UH great teams of past, better RPI, SOS, or in between, or less?
Still hard to grasp, Eran’s guys? or Benjy and Gib’s guys, Eran should acknowledge the past MBB program, to not do that, that is not to cool.
It means, the 94 wins, by previous program and Benjy’s frantastic 22 win season, and just 3 minutes from taking the lead against Irvine and getting to NCAA. it is a shame,
Eran, you have to respect the Benjy and The Bows, Benjy will write a story, or short novel or espn piece and espn mini movie, on what went down.Benjy just 2 more years, then Eran, Bennett, Fisher or whomever..
too bad.
still feels funny, how Benjy got left out..
It’ll always feel funny how benji got left out…TO YOU.
However getting back to the topic, as Dayton requested, Eran seems to have a good handle on things. Yes, a little underwhelming in the public speaking, especially compared to the fib, but I think we need to wait to see the impact with him. With fib, his impact was brash, arrogant, and immediate. With a humble guy like Eran, which very much fits Hawaii – humility, We should expect gains in player development, instead of Eran saying how much better the guys are.
Article in today’s SA: Amanda was interviewed by Bickerton for four hours and also he interviewed Benjy. Hope Benjy tells the “truth”, so he doesn’t get into some trouble.
And UH’s lead attorney will join the SEC as Assoc Commissioner for Legal Affairs & Compliance on Sept 1 . His boss at the SEC will be Greg Sankey, who chairs the NCAA Committee on Infractions, but will not sit on the UH case .
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Rob DeMello said (all) 11 returning UH players are listed on the Summer League rosters
Compared to last year, when was it only about four ?
http://khon2.com/2015/06/16/local-basketball-stars-descend-upon-manoa/
Since our chances of getting into post season play next year depend largely on UC Irvine, note that they will have a very senior/junior laden team back.
However, unlike UH, they are actually building their future on frosh. They have 3 – 3* frosh recruits and 1 – 2.3* recruit.
Politics aside, our UH Warriors will have a good nucleus back for the first time in awhile. Let’s hope that we can build on that…can’t wait to see the season begin.
GO WARRIORS…time to really work on improving your game.
An ESPN piece on Benjy? Been watching too much Sharknado, if you think just any ordinary story deserves to be on TV.
Sure, Benjy will get his piece, after Texas Southern gets theirs. People don’t want to hear a story that ends with a 5th place finish in the Big West, and never making it to any tournament (68 NCAA + 32 NIT = not even Top 100).
Very much in minority, those few posts that question Benjy, his great job he did, and his guys buying in, that guy, Benjy, with all the doo doo thrown at him, it is so low class, not aloha, I don’t know how he kept his cool, He accepted and just coached , and team did great, Yes count em, very, very few, chime in to this forum, saying things against Benjy, or what Gib did, and the faction that got him out.
Hey, those that question me, for going off video topic? What about Islandman? I appreciate his research, however, many times, NOT EVEN anything to do with the above writeup and Interview, with Eran.
How Eran, got the job, just politics.. and soon will come out, NCAA hearings, very thorough.. will clean things, up, Eran not perfect, and Jeff, Jacks, POWERS that be, really low balled a great coach, one of the Best coaches, and Should have been the new permanent HC at UH.. The majority of that 4800 or so, that went to SSC? and BWC tournament, ? you don’t think they did not support Benjy, Benjy Benjy the chant at last Home game?
give me a break.
Yes, all make mistakes, however, Benjy learned, high character, more so at this point than Eran , Eran has not Done Anything at UH yet, not ONE single thing,.. Benjy accomplished, a great.
thing..
and you can take that to the bank.. yes, I hope NCAA will clean out UH.. for better.
The VERY very few that are anti Benjy, and even the reading give back programs of Gib, you all are in the majority, Show me 1000 different monikers, not same person, who are anti Benjy that will post.. ? Does not exist, Benjy should have had the job, UH has to live with it.. and Benjy such a high road, guy, will be okay, he loves Hawaii, his home, and his kids, even Gib admitted he is not perfect, however, I still don’t like politics, getting into selection of MBB coach, and maybe even worse as we will learn at NCAA hearings,
Yes, Me going Off Topic, how come Others, can .. well I support the team, Gib and Benjy’s recruits, and want them to win, and go NCAA if allowed, however, will not fully support a scheme, to get in an untested, HC.. wish Eran the best.. however, it should have been, in the land of Aloha, Benjy you are going to have great year.. he will always be HC.. were You all there at the BB banquet?. full house felt the same, support for Benjy, not for Political shibai that got him and Gib out..
Yes, 1000, different people to chime in,, anti Benjy, Never going happen..
maybe I am the voice of the 4800 that do support, and the ones watching on TV, another 18000 who support Benjy, against the 1800 who do not..
Cedric the entertainer is going to play Benjy in the str8 to Netflix movie.
Thank you, Gib
Sorry,Taylor is yesterday’s news…
As a fan, are you all in, if so, support the current coach.
Coach Ganot applied for the job along with other “quality” applicants. He was selected. Believe the majority of the people on this blog are NOT going to throw people under the bus by taking sides.
Ganot is the coach, he deserves our support! There are no what ifs or I wish or should have been.
I consider myself one of the 180,000 who support Coach Ganot. So it’s not anti- anything it’s more like focusing on the positive, the present and the future…With respect…
UH FAnz only alias who Eva. Please stop insinuating how Eran got the job underhandedly He went through a selection process. And picked by Matlin For crying out loud live with it If you want to comsim about something find something worth complaining about like the high cost of the Rail project and how it’s going to tax us forever to run it ! Remember Gib got his job by using his Punahou connection before the job was listed he was approaching the AD. . Go ahead ask Riley he’ll tell you the whole story. Same way Chow got the job. So much but failures for the Punahou m a fi a.
Kids drugs are bad for you. Give me what you’re smoking if you think ESPN will do a documentary on Benji and the Bows, laughable. Eran has done a couple of things as coach already such as signing two players, filing his staff and running the children’s clinics. Let’s please focus on the team and Eran. Real fans follow a program and not past coaches who put the program in a tough situation.
Yes. Summer league to start up soon !
For those that go back, I think it was even an Armed Forces league, Army, Marines, Hickam Flyers, SubPac(Navy), Mikilua(Army?), back in the day, seventies, guys like Henry Hollingsworth, 5’11” SG from NYC, a get by Al Menendez, assistant to Bruce O’Neil, and eventually I think, getting old..was coach or assistant coach to NY Nets of NBA..and Paul Burnie, a 6’8″ , O’Neil/ Jim Halm get for UH, Dwight Holiday and Henry Hollingsworth had a duel, they both go off for 36 or 38 points in a summer league game, WITHOUT 3 point line. Those were some great summer league games. UH guys, ex college and the Military teams. Then, they started that NCAA collegiate summer league, with guys past present or future college, guys playing. Thomas Louden, Joe Frazier, 5’8″ PG, from NYC, Aaron Hines 6’2″ 42 inch vert, Aaron Strayhorn, 6’0″ scoring PG, who was drafted by NBA,
Andre Morgan, Eric Slim Bowman, 6’8″ 190 forward from Chicago who dunked on 6’9″ 235 pound Tony Wells UH center,… Andre Morgan, for those that remember, he could not qualify out of HS from Indiana, some major schools wanted him, however the academics, so sat out that first year, however, when he played in his first NCAA summer league, wow.. awesome, like a combination at 6’4″ 200 , of Magic Johnson, and some Dr J, high flying dunks, and , at least in summer league, some 28 foot bombs, for 2 points.. great passer, too bad. he could have been an NBA player, he had great skillset.. just the other things..
Summer league, yes, a lot of memories, so happy local guys still play, Derrick Low, Julian Sensley, ..those are too very classy guys, who still love Hawaii, and are giving back helping UH and younger guys in the Collegiate Summer league, get better,.. Basically run , gun and have fun, Just do not get hurt UH guys, Stay healthy.. !
2016 home game vs North Carolina is huge. Biggest named opponent to play at the Stanley in a while. A quality opponent at home hasn’t happened for a long time. Big props to Eran and the AD who made this happen. This is a can’t miss game.
N Carolina on the UH schedule, but next Nov. 16 ( 2016) . Hall of Fame coach, per Ganot. But N Carolina will probably be on probation due to academic problems with the NCAA.
http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/20150618_UH_hoops_finalizes_game_to_host_North_Carolina_in_2016.html?id=308268581
N Carolina has been charged with five Level I violations.
http://espn.go.com/college-sports/story/_/id/13012146/ncaa-charges-north-carolina-tar-heels-five-serious-violations