Just as they poured onto the court in victory together in Anaheim, so they piled into the Capitol chambers of Gov. David Ige.

Several hours of dual celebration for University of Hawaii hoops were capped off with Ige proclaiming Monday both Rainbow Warrior and Rainbow Wahine basketball day.

Coaches and players of both teams beamed in the crowded executive hall as they were presented with plaques from the governor and members of the legislature.

“It’s pretty crazy,” forward Mike Thomas said. “We’re getting a lot of attention, which is good, it’s different. More than we’re used to. But it’s cool. I’ve been enjoying every second of it.”

UH’s simultaneous Big West championships in men’s and women’s hoops were a feat close to unprecedented. The only other time both won their league in the same year was 1994.

First-year coach Eran Ganot guided the Rainbow Warriors to a record 28 wins against six losses and the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory, a 77-66 upset of fourth-seeded California by the 13th-seeded ’Bows. They were knocked out by Maryland in the second round.

Fourth-year Wahine coach Laura Beeman got her program back to the NCAAs for the first time since 1998 after three straight years in the WNIT. UH fell at UCLA in the first round.

“You enjoy the moment as you’re getting better,” said Ganot, the Big West Coach of the Year. “Now there’s a finality to it, and now you can celebrate the moment.”

The day’s festivities started with a rally at Manoa Campus Center attended by a couple hundred fans. After the UH pep band and cheerleaders got things warmed up, Chancellor Robert Bley-Vroman and athletic director David Matlin paid tribute to the teams, followed by speeches by Ganot and Beeman.

Not all the players were there — some were still coming back from spring break on the mainland — but it still made for a lively scene.

“Guys were doing their own thing, spring break, but getting back together now, it’s a special day,” said Stefan Jankovic, the Big West Player of the Year. “It shows you again how appreciated we are. Since I’ve been back on the island, and my teammates too, we’ve had so much aloha, so much love, and it’s great.”

Most of the attending fans were not current UH students.

“It was cool,” Thomas said. “I mean, the reception, and the spirit. The fans are coming out for this, I didn’t even know people outside of the school were going to be invited to this, to be honest. It’s cool. So yeah, proud of both of our programs.”

Beeman and Ganot both spoke of using the moment as a show of unity to uphold in an athletic department that hasn’t always enjoyed harmony.

In the few years prior to Ganot’s arrival last April, a joint event between the UH men’s and women’s basketball teams would’ve been unlikely, to say the least.

“Today just shows me that Hawaii’s always been on the map, so let’s keep it there,” Beeman said. “Let’s keep moving it in proximity to where we want to go as an athletic department, which is an entire athletic program to be reckoned with, if you will.”

Said Ganot: “You hear all the time about teams competing with each other, all this kind of nonsense. People within Hawaii. That’s crap. We have a 100 percent, genuine support for each other. And I think that’s why we’re good, and why we will be good.”

Then it was off to the Capitol, the same place UH recently made its case for more funding for its athletics programs.

That topic was off the table Monday in light of the celebratory occasion, one that called back anecdotes to some of UH’s great teams, such as the Fabulous Five.

Ige recounted how, as a student at Highlands Intermediate in the early 1970s, UH hoops was so unpopular in the years prior that the Highlands band was brought in to play at the games at the Blaisdell.

“Even the (UH) band didn’t want to show up,” Ige said to laughter. “But that season started that run into big-time basketball for the University of Hawaii.

“As a middle school student, that changed my life forever. It truly was that kind of excitement that this season brought back, I think for the entire state.”

At one point in the chamber, the men’s players were saluted for withstanding the turbulence of the past two years: the NCAA’s investigation and subsequent sanctions, and two coaching changes.

“For someone with that much power to recognize that … it was good to hear, too, because it helps us recognize the struggle that we’ve been through,” Jankovic said.

Members of the Rainbow Warriors’ junior class have some big decisions to make in the coming days. Jankovic, Thomas, Stefan Jovanovic and Aaron Valdes can either elect to come back, transfer to another school and play immediately, or go pro. None of the four was ready to make that call on Monday.

For Beeman and her women’s team, Monday represented a chance to take things further.

“We had that piece of success, now we want to take it to the next level,” she said. “We want to be the team that gets to the (round of) 32, or 16, or 8, or whatever it is. That takes a lot of commitment, it takes a lot of work. It’s giving the girls time off to take a deep breath, but then getting them back pretty quickly on the court, together again, to keep the excitement and keep their focus so we can stay at the level we are.

“It’s not easy. Getting there is sometimes easier than staying there.”