Eran Ganot pointed to the two logos on his shirt.

“Look, they’re similar,” the University of Hawaii basketball coach said. “And we’re both kind of the underdog who is trying to do things out of the box.”

Well, considering some of athletic outfitter Under Armour’s other clients, it may have already graduated from the ranks of the gritty try-harders.

Steph Curry, Tom Brady, Cam Newton, Bryce Harper and Jordan Spieth are a few of UA’s A-listers.

They can’t all be wrong, can they?

As we learned with Nike golf clubs and Tiger Woods, however, just because a superstar uses a product doesn’t mean it’s good. At his peak, Woods could’ve won hitting his ball with hockey sticks.

We already knew before UH’s relationship with UA, which started nine years ago, that what Nike was to shoes, Under Armour was to shirts: in a word, great.

But we soon learned that when it came to shoes, Under Armour was closer to what Nike was in golf clubs: not so great.

In 2008, the first year of the UA-UH marriage, I remember more running backs falling victim to solo tackles by the turf monster than I’d ever seen in college football — not just in one season, but total. Sometimes it looked like they were playing on ice.

The shoes did look good. So did the dry-fit unis … and they really do keep you warm when it’s cold and cool when it’s hot.

But as any athlete will tell you, if your footwear is not functional you’re in trouble.

And it wasn’t just football shoes that needed improvement. Softball coach Bob Coolen said the first batch his team got had more in common with high-heels than something you’d play ball in.

“Three long cleats in the front and two in the back, with no balance, especially for our bigger players,” Coolen said. “We told them we needed something sturdy, with the ability to pivot 360 degrees, especially for our pitchers.”

And guess what? Under Armour listened.

They got better.

The shoes got better.

“They’ve grown with us, we’ve grown with them,” Coolen said.

Current quarterbacks coach Craig Stutzmann was a UH football graduate assistant during the first year of the original Under Armour deal.

“They’re awesome now,” Stutzmann said. “A far cry from what they were. I was secretly hoping the new contract would be with them again.”

Ganot was also a young UH assistant coach in 2008.

“It was an up-and-coming company. You could feel the energy,” he said. “Maybe when they first started (the shoes were substandard). But everything’s been completely on the rise.”

The number of colleges Under Armour has sponsorship deals with now is nearly 10 times what it was nine years ago when Hawaii joined Auburn, Maryland, South Carolina and Texas Tech under the UA banner.

UH was coming off its Sugar Bowl season and the most exposure it had ever received. Greg McMackin had just replaced June Jones as head football coach, and he knew key people from UA because of his time at Tech. Then-associate athletic director John McNamara worked out the details.

You would never want to characterize Dave Shoji’s retirement as good timing, but it helps in this case. The legendary volleyball coach was rightfully loyal to Asics, and while he was active it was a given that any athletic department apparel deal would have an asterisk.

Now, though, exclusivity for Under Armour can be phased in. That means a more lucrative rights deal for UH.

“For the first time in our history all our sports teams will be outfitted by one brand,” athletic director David Matlin said.

And why does Under Armour still like Hawaii?

“It’s an indication we are trending in the right direction,” Matlin said.

It’s also about being in the right place at the right time.

Sometimes this geography thing of being in the middle of the Pacific Ocean kills us. But it also makes us attractive to a still-growing company that would like to build on its markets in Asia and Australia.

UH is 2,500 miles closer to those continents than any other NCAA Division I university, and recruits a lot in the latter.

“They’re calculated, they’re smart,” Ganot said of Under Armour. “They don’t try to have relationships with everyone.”

Reach Dave Reardon at dreardon@staradvertiser.com or 529-4783. His blog is at hawaiiwarriorworld.com/quick-reads.