Hawaii Pacific University announced junior college veteran Ray Alvarado as its new head coach over last weekend, ending a period of more than five months without a replacement for its last program leader.

Alvarado comes from the College of the Sequoias in Visalia, Calif., where he led the program since 2010 — including the first five years there as a part-time head coach. Under Alvarado, COS picked up seven conference titles and one state final four appearance, and in 2022-23 went 28-3.

“I am honored and excited to join Hawaii Pacific University as the head coach of the women’s basketball team,” Alvarado said in an HPU release. “I sincerely thank President John Gotanda, Vice President-CFO David Kostecki and Executive Director of Athletics, Dr. Debbie Snell, for the honor of leading this team. I look forward to building upon the program’s rich history and working with our talented student-athletes to achieve even greater success on and off the court.”

Alvarado will be the fifth person to coach the Sharks women’s hoops program since the start of the 2021-22 season. Snell suspended Reid Takatsuka, the most successful coach in program history, early that season while alleging mistreatment of players, and two interim coaches took over until the end of that season. Takatsuka, who was fired after the season, has since filed a lawsuit against HPU.

HPU’s first full-time women’s basketball coach in the Takatsuka aftermath, Katie Novak, led the Sharks to a 14-14 record and a PacWest tournament berth in 2022-23 but left the program in April on her own volition. She brought in a player who would become the PacWest Player of the Year, center Abby Spurgin.

HPU then went essentially the entire offseason without a coach. It posted its upcoming 2023-24 season schedule prior to the announcement of Alvarado's hire.

HPU lists Tim Dunham, a member of the Chaminade men’s basketball team that stunned No. 1 Virginia at Blaisdell Arena in 1982, as the associate head coach under Alvarado on its staff directory on its website.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.