HONOLULU — With a three-year contract extension announced Friday, Eran Ganot is poised to join the short list of head coaches to lead the Hawaii men’s basketball program for a full decade.
The deal takes Ganot, who was entering the final year of his contract in 2022-23, through the 2025-26 season. It was the fourth time he’s had his contract extended by UH Athletic Director David Matlin, who hired him in 2015.
Should Ganot, who is entering his eighth season as Rainbow Warriors head man, coach for the duration of his new deal, he would become just the fourth person to helm the program for 10 years or more in the 100-plus seasons of UH hoops.
The others are Riley Wallace (20 years), Eugene “Luke” Gill (11), and Red Rocha (10).
Ganot told local media on a Zoom call Friday that he values continuity and stability.
“I played at one high school, went to one college. This is my 20th year coaching and I’ve only been to two schools,” he said. “I like that, having relationships with our players, administration, community. I kind of gravitate towards that.”
During the 2021-22 season, in which UH went 17-11 and finished in third place in the Big West at 10-5 — UH’s highest conference finish since it won the league in his first year of 2015-16 — Ganot moved into second place on the UH all-time wins list at 114-77, behind only Wallace’s 334.
The 2021-22 team did not deliver a championship, but its standing was a marked improvement over the previous half-decade of finishes at or near .500 in conference play. By winning its Big West tournament first-round game over UC Riverside, the Rainbow Warriors snapped a streak of five one-and-done conference tournaments going back to 2016-17.
Ganot got the UH job when he was 33 and one of the youngest Division I head coaches in the country coming off an assistant coaching gig under Randy Bennett at Saint Mary’s in Moraga, Calif. He got married just before his first UH game and he and wife Barbea have raised a daughter together.
Spectrum News asked the 40-year-old New Jersey native what he felt was his biggest area of personal growth over that span.
After giving an initial answer about implementing his preferred style in the program, Ganot revisited the question and opened up a little about distributing work and life stresses.
“My biggest area of growth … was having a better balance,” said Ganot, who took a two-month personal health leave in the 2019-20 season. “And that’s something I think coaches in general are always battling, because we’re so competitive. You realize that’s important for your guys too — sleep and recovery. You’re at your best when your players have good balance, your staff has good balance, their families are in a good place. So that’s the area of growth I’m most proud of and want to continue to build off of.”
Ganot’s extension announcement came a day after UH released information on a two-year extension of women’s basketball coach Laura Beeman that also takes her through the 2025-26 season.
"During Coach Ganot's tenure, UH basketball has been filled with many memorable triumphs and milestones," Matlin said in a statement. "This sustained success is made possible by the culture Coach Ganot has built. It's a culture, first and foremost, that has focused on the overall well-being and success of our student-athletes. We're extremely proud of Coach Ganot and the phenomenal young men he has recruited and developed here at UH. And we are energized for what's in store for Rainbow Warrior basketball under his continued leadership."
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.