Ganot’s coaching career handcuffed because of NCAA sanctions

If he had just two years to live, Larry Little once joked, he wanted them to be NCAA penalty years because they last longer than calendar ones.

It was tongue-in-cheek humor from a man who needed it as the last University of Hawaii men’s basketball coach to serve out an NCAA postseason ban.

The two-year penalty, announced in 1977 for 68 violations that occurred before Little’s arrival, impacted UH for much longer.

That’s something to keep in mind on several levels as the Rainbow Warriors prepare for the challenge of dealing with their one-year (2016-17 season) postseason ban handed down Tuesday by the NCAA Committee on Infractions and scholarship limitations.

Were he alive today, Little, who died in February, could counsel the current coach, Eran Ganot, on the considerable task of dealing with NCAA sanctions. Beyond the virtues of patience, hard work and an exacting, no-room-for-error approach in dealing with scholarship reductions in recruiting, Little would undoubtedly recommend securing a contract extension sooner rather than later.

Ganot is eight months into a three-year agreement that currently provides no provisions for relief in the event of NCAA sanctions not of his doing, UH said.

Perhaps he didn’t have the benefit of the acumen of Gib Arnold’s attorneys when he negotiated the deal back in April amid an ongoing NCAA process.

You get the feeling that the man who hired Ganot and is tied to his success, athletic director David Matlin, is agreeable now that the hammer has been put down by the NCAA. But UH policy limits Matlin to awarding no more than a three-year term without approval from the Board of Regents.

UH is off to a promising early start under the 33-year-old Ganot and if he keeps it going in the approaching — and defining — Big West Conference season, it would behoove the powers that be to give him some breathing room in his contract.

Meanwhile, Ganot has his work cut out in retaining juniors who will be eligible to transfer next year as well as signing up new recruits.

History tells us that prior to the onset of the NCAA investigation in 1975, UH had five consecutive winning seasons and three postseason appearances (NCAA and NIT) in an era when reaching the postseason was difficult since the NCAA Tournament field was just 24 teams.

Once it went before the NCAA Committee on Infractions, UH had four years without a winning season and a drought of 12 campaigns without a postseason (NIT or NCAA) appearance.

Keep in mind, of course, that some things were vastly different back in those Blaisdell Arena days, including the fact that UH did not play in a conference until the 1979-80 season.

These days 43 percent of the 346 Division I teams find their way into some postseason tournament, traditional (NCAA or NIT) or pay-to-play fringe (CBI and CI).

But woe be to the unprepared schools blackballed before the season even begins.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.