HONOLULU — A long-awaited date with North Carolina and the return of the Outrigger Rainbow Classic stand out for starkly different reasons on the Hawaii men’s basketball full 2024-25 schedule released Tuesday.
The Nov. 22 game with the Tar Heels, arranged three years in advance as a do-over for a game nixed for the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, is the highlight of the 20 games to be played at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
But first, the ‘Bows lead off Eran Ganot’s 10th season as Rainbow Warriors head coach with something of a curiosity. Due to continued challenges filling the four-team Rainbow Classic, an NAIA school, Life Pacific, was tapped to plug the hole. UH faces the Warriors of San Dimas, Calif., on Nov. 8 before continuing the round-robin event against San Jose State (Nov. 10) of the Mountain West and Pacific (Nov. 11) of the West Coast Conference.
Other stand-alone home nonconference dates are Weber State of the Big Sky (Nov. 17), Division II neighbor Hawaii Pacific (Nov. 26) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (Dec. 14) of the Southland Conference.
“I feel good about it. I think our guys are excited about it,” Ganot told Spectrum News in a phone interview. “People have reached out from the fan base excited about it.
“It’s got good competitive balance. Sometimes there’s challenges with having big breaks at times, but I don’t think we have too many of those.”
Life Pacific, which faced five Division I teams in the 2023-24 season with an average margin of loss of 29.6, is believed to be the first NAIA opponent in an official game on the UH schedule since Manoa hosted Hawaii Hilo on Dec. 6, 1990. Hilo became an NCAA Division II program in 1994.
It is the third time in the last five editions of the Rainbow Classic – UH's historic signature event – that a non-Division I team has been brought in to fill out the field. Hilo appeared in 2021 and Humboldt State in 2018. The Rainbow Classic was not held in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in 2023 due to difficulties with opponent scheduling.
Ganot said pulling in teams for it has become increasingly challenging given that Division I teams generally have fewer dates with which to work as conference schedules have grown to comprise more of the overall season. In its current format, the Rainbow Classic does not enjoy the special designation of a Multi-Team Event that opponents can count as a single game on their schedule.
“There’s some challenges there. … You don’t see a lot of teams, as much as earlier, being able to play three games,” Ganot said. “I’m appreciative we were able to bring the tournament back and we’ll get ahead of next year’s … knowing the challenges of teams.”
No local Division II teams were available during the Rainbow Classic dates this year, Ganot said.
An interesting schedule wrinkle involves a Dec. 3 game at defending WAC champion Grand Canyon in Phoenix as part of a road trip to face Long Beach State on Dec. 7. That Big West game – in what will be a reunion between Ganot and two of his former assistants, Chris Acker and John Montgomery – is part of an early week of conference action designed to keep a straight Thursday-Saturday routine intact for the rest of the 20-game BWC schedule from January to March.
It is the first time since 2005 that UH will play a conference game before Christmas; UH hosted Western Athletic Conference foe Utah State on Dec. 17 that year.
“We were trying to combine that road game in conference with (another),” Ganot said. “Not an easy task to play at Grand Canyon, probably one of the premier home-court atmospheres in the country … and a lot of success recently.” The Antelopes won 30 games and reached the NCAA Tournament second round.
The ‘Bows will wrap up nonconference play in the nationally televised Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Dec. 22, 23 and 25, starting with Charlotte of the American Athletic Conference.
The building blocks of the nonconference schedule were the UNC game and the early Big West week, Ganot said. Another emphasis was getting more Friday and Saturday games, of which UNC is one. UH was able to get the Tar Heels to agree to stop over on the way to the Maui Jim Maui Invitational, as UNC did in 2016 and would have in 2020 under Roy Williams. Coach Hubert Davis led his team to the NCAA Sweet 16 in March.
“To get one of the blue bloods in North Carolina is exciting,” Ganot said.
He noted that Weber State and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi are coming off of 20-win seasons. UH and Weber State have not crossed paths since 1975 and it has met Corpus Christi just once, in 2002.
For the first time, UH has a full week off after the Diamond Head Classic before the main portion of the Big West schedule begins at home against UC Santa Barbara on Jan. 2.
The marquee home week of the Big West schedule could be in mid-February, when UH hosts LBSU (Feb. 13) and UC Irvine (Feb. 15) entering the stretch drive of the season.
UH men’s basketball 2024-25 schedule
* - Big West Conference game
Nov. 8 – Life Pacific
Nov. 10 – San Jose State
Nov. 11 – Pacific
Nov. 17 – Weber State
Nov. 22 – North Carolina
Nov. 26 – Hawaii Pacific
Dec. 3 – at Grand Canyon
Dec. 7 – at Long Beach State*
Dec. 14 – Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Dec. 22 – Charlotte
Dec. 23 – Diamond Head Classic TBD
Dec. 25 – Diamond Head Classic TBD
Jan. 2 – UC Santa Barbara*
Jan. 4 – Cal Poly*
Jan. 9 – at UC Riverside*
Jan. 11 – at Cal State Fullerton*
Jan. 16 – Cal State Northridge*
Jan. 18 – Cal State Bakersfield*
Jan. 23 – at UC Davis*
Jan. 25 – at UC Irvine*
Jan. 30 – UC San Diego*
Feb. 1 – Cal State Fullerton*
Feb. 6 – at Cal Poly*
Feb. 8 – at UC Santa Barbara*
Feb. 13 – Long Beach State*
Feb. 15 – UC Irvine*
Feb. 22 – at UC San Diego*
Feb. 27 – UC Riverside*
March 1 – UC Davis*
March 6 – at Cal State Bakersfield*
March 8 – at Cal State Northridge*
March 12-15 – Big West championships, Henderson, Nev.
Correction: UH's Jan. 16 and 18 dates against CSUN and CSUB were previously marked in the above schedule as road games when they are at home.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.