As the University of Hawaii athletics administration considers the direction of its men’s basketball program, one marker — general fan interest, quantified by attendance figures — has been tough to miss.

In that, UH has cause for pause.

Using tickets issued and turnstile figures as readily available metrics to cross-check with historic trends, it's apparent that the last three seasons have generated some of the least turnout for the Rainbow Warriors in non-COVID-19-impacted years since they moved from the Blaisdell Arena into the 10,300-seat Stan Sheriff Center in 1994.

UH averaged 5,140 tickets issued for its games in 2022-23, 4,796 in 2023-24 and 4,919 in the recently completed 2024-25 season. Prior to that stretch (and before the pandemic caused fans to be completely and then partially excluded for the 2020-21 and 2021-22 seasons) the lowest at the Sheriff was 5,527 in 2018-19.

"I think it's important to understand that attendance is influenced by a variety of factors across all sports,” acting UH athletic director Lois Manin told Spectrum News in a statement when asked for comment about the UH basketball attendance trend. “For men’s basketball in particular, changes in conference scheduling has affected non-conference opportunities. There are more competing events and less available weekends. That said, we are working on ways to improve men’s basketball attendance in this changing landscape.”

Manin noted that UH’s other arena sports — men’s volleyball, women’s volleyball and women’s basketball — as well as baseball are trending upward in attendance.

“It's a tribute to the collaborative team effort that is committed to improving the fan experience and exploring new ways to engage the fan base to ensure that our student-athletes and programs continue to receive the support they deserve,” Manin said.

Rainbow Warriors hoops crowds peaked in the Sheriff in 1997-98, when the “Dynamic Duo” of Anthony Carter and Alika Smith captivated the state and UH basketball was a true hot ticket; 9,615 were issued per game. There were 12 sellouts that year among 25 to date in what is now the fourth decade of the building’s existence.

UH basketball ticket distribution (which includes purchased tickets as well as giveaways) was in the 7,000s for much of the 2000s, when UH made a run of four straight postseason appearances, and was still in the 6,000s for most of the turbulent 2010s, when the program went through four head coaches in a six-year span. It built back up to above 7,000 for the breakthrough year of 2015-16, when Eran Ganot stepped in to lead a program dealing with the scrutiny (and later penalties) of an NCAA investigation for improper student-athlete benefits under the Gib Arnold regime.

With an exceptionally talented roster and some newly introduced structure, the ‘Bows won the Big West regular-season and tournament titles and a program-record 28 games, including its first NCAA Tournament victory.

But increasingly, that magical run to Spokane, Wash., for March Madness seems of an elusive, ephemeral era. UH has yet to get back to a Big West championship game or contend for another regular-season title, and it is coming off the roughest stretch of Ganot’s 10-year tenure — the Rainbow Warriors dropped 10 of their last 13 games of the 2024-25 season and failed to qualify for a conference tournament for the first time since 2010, ending with a record of 15-16.

Ganot, who has championed character, community outreach and accountability during his decade at UH, is set to enter the last year of his contract in 2025-26, leaving UH administration — possibly its to-be-named permanent AD in the coming months — with three apparent choices with what to do this offseason: offer a contract extension, allow a so-called lame-duck season or make a coaching change.

Some fans appear to have voted with their presence, or lack thereof. In 2024-25, there were six games with a turnstile count of fewer than 2,500, compared to only four games over 4,000. UH’s senior night turnstile crowd of 3,457 for a win over UC Davis was the smallest for a restriction-free home finale in many years.

Ganot rarely fails to praise the UH fan base for its passion and loyalty in his postgame press conferences, win or loss.

The coach, traveling since the season ended, messaged Spectrum News on Thursday in regard to the attendance trend: “Our fanbase is awesome — always been very appreciative of their support through the ups and downs.  We have spoken on the challenges in scheduling in the current landscape and how it has impacted our attendance. This year, our inconsistencies on the floor certainly didn’t help.”

Ganot added, “All of us at UH are working on creative solutions to counter the changes in the landscape of scheduling and we expect to bounce back on the floor as well. There is nothing like the energy of a packed Simplifi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center crowd and want everyone to feel the incredible power of the Hawaii fanbase.”

Attendance ticked up in 2024-25 from 2023-24, in large part due to the marquee Nov. 22 game against then-No. 10 North Carolina in which 8,377 passed through the turnstiles among 8,948 tickets issued.

The turnstile average of 3,095 in 20 games was an improvement of just over 3,000 the year before. And those figures are still better than the 2,873 UH drew per game when attendance bottomed out in Bob Nash’s final year of 2009-10.

As the North Carolina game proved, marquee nonconference opponents can still bring out fans in droves, but no home games of that caliber — in the case of the UNC game, it was announced years in advance — have been made known for the coming season. UH is also without its nationally televised Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic for at least the coming year as operator ESPN Events has paused the tournament indefinitely. The season-opening Rainbow Classic has also been difficult to fill with all Division I teams in recent years.

In UH’s all-college era for men’s basketball since the late 1960s, the low point in attendance was 1987-88, when Riley Wallace inherited a limping program from Frank Arnold and went 4-25 in his first season. UH averaged 1,684 tickets issued at the Blaisdell.

“I was in that arena where you could hear the ball echo at least 50 dribbles after you dribbled once,” said Kawika Hallums, a Spectrum Sports hoops analyst who was a first-year guard on that team. “That's how bad it was in 1987 … there was just no chance of anyone getting excited. It was like a practice.”

He knows firsthand how quickly things can shift, though. By the next season, UH won 17 games, stunned Purdue in the Rainbow Classic semifinals and went on to make the NIT. Attendance more than doubled.

Hallums said he thinks the dwindling numbers — “it’s tough to see,” he said — could have something to do with the overall game experience, but that “ultimately it falls back on the product on the floor. And unfortunately, that magical 2015-16 (season), those years, man, it seems like such a memory, because it was such an exciting time.”

Hallums continues to support Ganot. He thinks an infusion of local players, like point guard Aaron Hunkin-Claytor, a Wahiawa native who started down the stretch of his freshman season, could help get people to turn out.

“(Ganot) is the number one guy that I know is always going to do things the right way, but I know in this climate, he can see that we got to get the ball rolling, man, we got to get this turned around quick,” Hallums said.

The coming season is to be UH’s last in the Big West before it moves to a stronger basketball conference, the Mountain West, in the summer of 2026.

As Manin pointed out, UH’s other arena sports have maintained, if not grown their attendance, recovering completely from pre-pandemic levels.

UH has led the nation in men’s volleyball attendance in 25 of 29 qualifying seasons at the Sheriff. In the last half-decade, that sport has surged as the Rainbow Warriors have consistently vied for national championships since 2019, winning it all in 2021 and 2022.

Charlie Wade’s No. 4-ranked team has averaged 6,522 tickets issued in 15 home games so far this season and, with marquee dates like Long Beach State and the Big West tournament coming up, will likely finish the year with the program’s highest average since 1998.

Rainbow Wahine volleyball, which led the nation in attendance annually from 1995 to 2014, has remained in the top four in that statistic the last three years even as power conference teams have steadily invested more resources.

Robyn Ah Mow’s group produced a tickets-issued average of 6,182 in 2024, 6,181 in 2023 and 5,963 in 2022.

UH women’s basketball has had crowds fluctuate, sometimes tied to the presence of Hawaii-born players on its roster, but has seen a recent comeback, aided by big-turnout nights like “Beeman’s Big Bash” put on by UH in honor of longtime coach Laura Beeman the last two seasons.

Beeman’s Wahine generated issuances of 1,525 tickets in 2022-23, to 2,293 in 2023-24 and 2,151 in the just-completed 2024-25 season.

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