HONOLULU — When Nevada enters SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center on Sunday night, the Mountain West team will be the highest-profile opponent to face the Hawaii men’s basketball team on its home court so far this season.
Will that be what finally gets fans to come out to see the 2023-24 Rainbow Warriors in person?
Attendance has flagged through five home games, whether due to UH’s late release of the schedule, an underwhelming lineup of visiting teams, apathy from the Rainbow Warriors’ lack of recent postseason success, or contests on difficult days of the week. UH is averaging just 4,248 tickets issued – and less than half that, 2,071, through the turnstiles of the 10,300-seat arena.
UH (7-1) has shot and shared the ball exceptionally through the young season, contributing to its best eight-game start since Eran Ganot’s first year in 2015-16 when the ‘Bows went on to make their most recent NCAA Tournament appearance.
And yet, people haven’t shown up in meaningful numbers. The tickets issued average is down significantly – more than 1,000 per game – from the last pre-pandemic nonconference season of 2019-20, when UH distributed a mean of 5,279 in nine home games in a similar period prior to the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.
The 5 p.m. Nevada game, followed by the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Dec. 21, 22 and 24, represents the meat of the UH nonconference schedule.
“Every fan always appreciates a winner … certainly a team that plays hard with great effort and plays together, and this team’s doing that,” said Ganot, the ninth-year UH coach, when asked this week about the reluctant crowds. “We know we gotta continue to do our part. But to have an NCAA Tournament team come in here before the Diamond Head (Classic) on a Sunday, who’s playing well … it’s going to be a heck of a challenge. We need us all to get it done, and we need our fan base.”
One might blame the hoops turnout downturn on fans’ lingering reluctance to come out post-pandemic or a rising worldwide trend of people watching sporting events remotely, but Rainbow Wahine volleyball showed a near-full recovery this fall, with an average of 6,069 tickets issued in its nonconference home games compared to 6,141 in those matches in 2019.
Fans were not allowed to attend the pandemic-abbreviated 2020-21 basketball season and crowds only gradually returned after gathering restrictions were lifted just before 2021-22.
But the hoops crowds are even down marginally (a little more than 100 per game) compared to last year’s pre-Diamond Head Classic nonconference contests, when there were 4,384 tickets issued on average. After three victorious games in the nationally televised DHC and 10 home Big West games, including a donation-aided sellout against UC Irvine, the 2022-23 full issued average climbed to 5,140 – still the least for men’s basketball in the Sheriff Center’s 29 years of operation (not including 2020-21 and 2021-22).
“We do appreciate our fans who’ve been with us thus far. They’ve made their presence felt,” Ganot said. “And hopefully as in past years it grows as the season goes along.”
Starting power forward Justin McKoy, a graduate student and newcomer to the program who played at Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouses Virginia and North Carolina for his undergraduate years, said he hadn’t noticed the size of the crowd because those who’ve shown up have been appreciably noisy.
“The crowd is loud here when we’re playing well,” McKoy said. “I mean, I haven’t looked into how many people we have in the stands, but at the same time, you can feel their presence. I’m hoping that as we play better and as we continue to win, more people will come out and support us, because I think we’re worth it. I think we’re worth supporting. I think we’re really good. I think we’ll continue to be really good. So yeah, I think it’ll pick up a little bit as we start to win more games.”
If UH beats Nevada, UH’s old Western Athletic Conference rival, that could have an impact on team perception that the ‘Bows’ wins to date lacked. The Wolf Pack are coming off an NCAA Tournament appearance, have significant size, get to the foul line at an elite rate and are led by a veteran coach in Steve Alford. Nevada (8-1) is rated No. 53 in KenPom to Hawaii’s 107.
It will be a contrast to the five foes who’ve come through the Sheriff so far this year, in terms of quality of the opponent combined with accessibility for fans.
Two games have been against Division II opponents (Hawaii Hilo and Hawaii Pacific), one was added a week before the season started (Niagara) and one tipped off past 9 p.m. (Northern Arizona) after that day’s Allstate Maui Invitational action in the Sheriff. The Central Arkansas game on Dec. 3 was a doubleheader with Wahine basketball and gave the attendance an artificial injection of several hundred who did not appear to stick around for the men's game.
There have been two games on Tuesdays and one on a Thursday. The Nevada game will be UH’s third straight on a Sunday.
Ganot said he and his staff have looked at different ways to get Friday and Saturday night games prior to Big West Conference play, but it is a challenge with conflicts in the arena like the possibility of Wahine volleyball hosting an NCAA subregional, UH graduation and third-party obligations like robotics conferences.
“We’ve tried to be creative and outside the box and the scheduling landscape has changed significantly, and we need to make some adjustments on our end as well,” Ganot said. “But we try to get teams on the way to (the Maui Invitational); next year we have North Carolina (coming) and this year was difficult. This year we tried to get teams on the way to the Diamond Head. In this case it was a top-50 Nevada team...
“Maybe it would’ve been ideal if we had some of that on the front end (of the schedule), but this was the only way we could do it. But I do think over the years, Hawaii, we’ve got an intelligent fan base, a great fan base.”
Nevada will compete on the opposite side of the Diamond Head Classic bracket from Hawaii. UH opens its DHC title defense against Portland on Dec. 21.
UH men's basketball home attendance so far in 2023-24, tickets issued (turnstile)
Hawaii Hilo, 3,827 (1,796)
Niagara, 3,748 (1,862)
Northern Arizona, 3,853 (1,559)
Central Arkansas, 5,714 (3,119)*
Hawaii Pacific, 4,102 (2,021)
* — attendance combined with UH women's basketball doubleheader game
Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.