There hasn’t been a ‘Bows-Beach battle quite like this.
In nearly 40 all-time meetings between Big West men's basketball rivals Hawaii and Long Beach State, at no other time were the programs so entwined.
For “Bold Week,” a pre-Christmas Big West interlude designed to eliminate three-game weeks during the heart of conference play, UH drew an early encounter with some old friends.
First-year LBSU coach Chris Acker and Beach assistant John Montgomery, both former assistants of UH coach Eran Ganot, will be on the home sideline at the Walter Pyramid when the teams meet at 11 a.m. Hawaii time Saturday.
“Here we are,” Ganot said of the reunion in a phone interview with Spectrum News from Long Beach on Friday as UH prepared for what will be the first of at least two meetings with the Beach this year. “It’s tough. It’s somewhat unavoidable, especially recently, coaching against guys you either worked with or for.”
UH (5-2) is coming off a 78-72 loss at Grand Canyon in Phoenix in which the Rainbow Warriors’ second-half rally from 18 points down was stopped just short by the Antelopes.
Acker, facing a full rebuild in his first Division I head job after longtime coach Dan Monson was dismissed following last March’s improbable Beach run to the NCAA Tournament, is attempting to meld a collection of D-I and junior college transfers, plus some true freshmen in a new system.
The Beach (2-8) took its lumps early, including a 43-point shellacking to No. 4 Gonzaga, but Acker is coming off his first win over a D-I opponent in LBSU’s Bold Week opener at Cal State Fullerton on Thursday, 73-56.
Acker, in a phone interview with Spectrum News, said he experienced a special moment as he sat on the bench at Titan Gym.
“It was awesome to be in a conference game against Cal State Fullerton because … my first year in Hawaii was my first time coaching Division I basketball and my first conference game (at UH) was at Cal State Fullerton,” Acker said. “So that was pretty cool and surreal.”
While Ganot has coached against members of the Saint Mary’s tree in David Patrick and Kyle Smith, he’s never gone against one of his own former assistants in a Division I game. (Ganot has coached against his former director of operations Jesse Nakanishi of Division II Hawaii Pacific on two occasions, including two weeks ago.)
Acker and Montgomery were two of Ganot’s three full assistants during his first season of 2015-16, when the ‘Bows won a program-record 28 games and won their first NCAA Tournament game.
Acker remained one more season before taking an assistant job at Boise State and later, San Diego State for five successful seasons that included a national title game appearance in 2023.
Montgomery was with Ganot for nine years, rising to associate head coach and heading up defensive schemes, until this summer when he left to spend more time closer to home for an ill family member.
“You’ve been through a lot of battles with these guys and you’re always rooting for those guys,” Ganot said. “When you go through battles like that, so much respect for them as people, as coaches. We’ve had a couple of these over the years and obviously there’s going to be a lot of it moving forward.”
UH experienced heavy statistical turnover in the offseason, but not compared to LBSU, which ranked in the bottom 10 in NCAA Division I in returning production. Acker estimated he had “half a point” per game coming back.
The "Bold Week" gimmick could be fitting for this matchup; Ganot has noticed Acker’s group plays with a “tenacity” and physicality that sometimes includes ball pressure.
Acker, meanwhile, lauded UH’s spacing and shooting and called UH center Tanner Christensen “one of the best, if not the best big in our league.” Opponents have increasingly brought double teams on Christensen, forcing him to look for the open man.
Forward Gytis Nemeiksa (team-high 14.0 ppg) and guard Marcus Greene (10.4) have been UH’s best sources of offense of late, and both have come off the bench.
Ganot said it would be unwise to change too much anticipating what Montgomery and Acker know of his tendencies.
“You don’t want to outsmart yourself,” he said. “You just do the best you can, prepare as we always do and expect some wrinkles to come. They’re still finding themselves, we’re still finding ourselves.”
LBSU has shot only 41.2% from the field as a team, including 31.4% from 3-point range, and is committing nearly 18 turnovers per contest.
However, the Beach is averaging 8.1 steals and 4.0 blocks per game, with 6-foot-10 sophomore Derrick Michael Xzavierro, or DMX, contributing energy plays as the first D-I basketball player from Indonesia.
The Beach is paced by guard Devin Askew (16.7 ppg), a senior who leads the Big West in minutes after career stops at Kentucky, Texas and Cal. TJ Wainwright, a transfer from Robert Morris, has added 11.2 per game.
“What we’re trying to do is establish what everybody calls culture, but really set a foundation of what Long Beach basketball is now,” Acker said. “When you come and watch us, you’ll see an identity out on the floor. A team that’s going to defend, play extremely hard, sacrifice their bodies and represent our program at the highest level. That’s all the way down to tucking our jerseys in when we walk on the floor. How we carry ourselves, how we travel, all of those things.”
UH has won its Big West road opener six straight times. It has won the last five of six in the series with LBSU, including two straight at the Pyramid.
Saturday is Hawaii's first conference game before Christmas since it played Utah State in the old WAC on Dec. 17, 2005.
Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.