For the second straight year, the Hawaii basketball team will face a member of the Missouri Valley Conference to open up the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic.

The host Rainbow Warriors drew Illinois State in the 2016 edition of the eight-team holiday tournament, event-runner ESPN announced on Thursday. UH will play the Redbirds at 8:30 p.m. Dec. 22 on ESPN2, a broadcast upgrade from the last several years when the Diamond Head first-round games were all on ESPNU.

UH coach Eran Ganot reacted dispassionately to the pairing. The Rainbow Warriors’ best finish to date is third in the DHC, which typically offers the strongest competition of the nonconference schedule (but may not this year with North Carolina’s visit).

“You know you’re going to have a tough matchup regardless of who you play,” Ganot said.

Illinois State has won 18 or more games for five straight seasons, including 18-14 in 2015-16. In each of those years, the Redbirds knocked off a Top 25 team. They had the option of participating in a pay-to-play postseason tournament last year but declined.

The school in Normal, Ill., lost a second-team All-Missouri Valley player in guard DeVaughn Akoon-Purcell, the Redbirds’ top scorer (14.1 ppg). But three other double-digit scorers, headed by two-time all-conference defender Paris Lee, are among four expected returning starters.

“I know they come from a very good conference, the Missouri Valley, and a program with a rich tradition,” Ganot said. “A coach (Dan Muller) I’ve known a little bit over the years who comes from Vanderbilt, and has done a great job there. So we know they’re going to be very well coached, they’ll return a good core, they’ll present a great challenge.”

Illinois State will be the third MVC school to face UH in eight years of the Diamond Head. UH lost to No. 11 Wichita State in overtime, 80-79, in the 2014 semifinals and beat Northern Iowa 68-52 in last year’s first round.

On Day 2 of the tournament Dec. 23, the ‘Bows face either Utah of the Pac-12 Conference or San Francisco of the West Coast Conference. If it is USF, it will pit Ganot against Kyle Smith, a two-time finalist for the UH head job, including April 2015 when it went to Ganot. Ganot and Smith are offshoots of Randy Bennett’s coaching tree at Saint Mary’s.

“Those are always unique and I’d personally like to avoid (it),” Ganot said. “You don’t want to play against people in your coaching tree. As you move further along in this profession, those are somewhat unavoidable.”

On the other side of the bracket, the pairings are Tulsa vs. Stephen F. Austin and San Diego State vs. Southern Miss.

Among UH, Tulsa, SDSU and Utah, there is a former Western Athletic Conference team in each quarterfinal.

UH last faced Illinois State on Nov. 30, 1997, an 84-63 win by the Rainbows, who lead the all-time series 2-1.

Hawaii’s other confirmed opponents on its 2016-17 schedule are North Carolina (Nov. 18), Seton Hall (Dec. 6) and Princeton (Dec. 7).