Ganot proud of team’s leadership and culture

FULLERTON, Calif. >> Season-long swings of fortune had an offsetting effect for the Hawaii basketball team, which finished where many expected — right in the middle of the pack in the Big West Conference.

This week, there was one last ill-timed dramatic shift in store for the Rainbow Warriors, as they lost their Big West quarterfinal to UC Irvine, 68-67, Thursday night at the Honda Center. A disastrous last few minutes undid nearly a full game’s worth of strong play, and UH’s sixth-place season came to a sudden end at 17-13 (8-8 Big West).

“A microcosm,” third-year coach Eran Ganot said in an interview Saturday. “We’ve had these small, bad stretches that have overshadowed, and that’s the reality, of some really good long stretches.”

Despite the loss of two of his top three scorers to graduation — co-captains Mike Thomas and Gibson Johnson — Ganot has strong optimism heading into an offseason which includes a foreign tour to Australia in August, and the team banquet April 11.

Coming off a 14-16 season, UH clearly wasn’t the most talented team in the Big West, even factoring Thomas’ return from an injury redshirt season and expected payoff year. The predicted fifth-place program trusted in its drama-free culture and four-out system in its first season free of sanctions since the NCAA hammered it in 2015-16 (and lifted the worst of the punishment late in 2016-17).

“I thought we had the potential to do something, and you could see it in flashes this year,” Ganot said. “Proud that they made a jump as a program, we were better than the year before. That’s what you want. Now, it’s not where we wanted to finish in terms of the final result. But you can see the respect the league has for what our team’s about, what our program’s about. It’s about improvement every year.”

That included off-court areas, like grades and APR (academic progress rate).

“The thing’s a process. The painful thing about a process is you can’t skip steps,” Ganot said. “I’m really proud that we haven’t skipped any steps. I’m proud that the guys are improving and our future’s bright. That’s what’s exciting to me.”

When the ’Bows defended and rebounded at a high level, they took pressure off their hit-or-miss offense, which lacked a true star scorer.

After negotiating a staid nonconference schedule at 9-4, they surprised the Big West by getting off to a 4-1 start — first place — before they took a hard turn in the other direction, dropping five in a row, their longest slide in six years of BWC membership. That included inexplicable home losses to deadbeats UC Riverside and Cal State Northridge.

Then, “I think guys stepped up. I think guys understood the gravity in that moment for our season,” Ganot said. “I think our leadership was nails and our culture was nails.”

UH righted itself with a one-point road win at Irvine on Feb. 15, which allowed it to go 4-2 in its toughest stretch of the season heading into the Big West tournament. A win at Cal State Fullerton in the regular-season finale saved UH from its first Big West losing season.

The Rainbows became the first team in program history to go 1-1 against every conference opponent. They were 4-4 at home and 4-4 on the road.

“We have to get our mojo back at home,” Ganot conceded. UH dropped four of its last five games at the Stan Sheriff Center.

Thomas (13.1 ppg, 6.0 rpg), UH’s five-year rock at forward, had the eighth-most accurate season (56.3 percent) in UH history, picked up a Big West honorable mention and finished his career with 899 points and 499 rebounds. Johnson (10.4, 4.7) saved the best game of his two-year career for last, scoring 23 on 8-for-10 shooting against UCI in the tournament. He nearly got the ’Bows to the semifinals with a three-point play in the final seconds.

“As you build a program, you’re always going to lose some guys,” Ganot said. “My expectation is that other guys will fill the role. (But) it’s not going to be the same as Mike and Gibson.”

The burden of leadership could now shift to the backcourt. Drew Buggs (8.1 ppg, 3.6 apg) grew as the team’s primary ball-handler and set a UH freshman record with 46 steals; junior Brocke Stepteau (9.5 ppg) was the team’s late-clock maestro; and junior Sheriff Drammeh (10.7 ppg) was the Big West’s top hustle player and its most irritating.

Jack Purchase (7.5 ppg, 5.1 rpg) improved his toughness and rebounding to win Big West sixth man, but the stretch forward’s shooting, like his team, would come and go. He hit 50 3s for the year, down from 72 the season before; he needs 59 in his final year to own the UH career mark. Sophomore Zigmars Raimo (2.7) supplied a late-season spark.

“I think the guys have developed in our program. Jack, I expect him to make a jump,” Ganot said.

On the other hand, guard Leland Green (5.6 ppg) and center Ido Flaisher (1.3) had sophomore slumps and Drammeh (four) led an uptick in technical fouls.

UH’s 2017 recruits had a quiet year. Kahuku graduate Samuta Avea (2.6) showed some flashes, but junior college transfer Brandon Thomas (1.8) fell out of the rotation. Reserve point guard Jaaron Stallworth quit the team in November. Wing Justin Hemsley redshirted and Kahuku’s Jessiya Villa has another year of a church mission to serve.

UH has already signed three behemoths for 2018-19 — 6-11 Australians Mate Colina and Owen Hulland and a 7-footer from Colorado, Dawson Carper. Colina is already enrolled and practicing.

“This is the first year we can be ahead of the class,” Ganot said. “(Unlike 2017’s scholarship penalty uncertainty) we knew our scholarships for ’18, and we knew we needed to bolster our front line. You don’t want to scramble on recruiting, you certainly don’t want to do it with bigs.”

At present, UH has one scholarship to award.

“The priority is adding another backcourt/perimeter player, a dynamic perimeter player who combines a little bit of everything in that spot, in terms of the athleticism and the skill in shooting,” Ganot said.