Eran Ganot is keeping the keys to the Hawaii men’s basketball program for its final season in the Big West Conference.

UH acting athletic director Lois Manin issued a statement on Monday indicating that Ganot will coach out the final year of his contract in the coming 2025-26 season, which will be his 11th with the program.

“Coach Ganot and I met last week, and we are committed to supporting the men’s basketball program, staff and student-athletes as we work towards a successful 2025-26 season,” Manin said.

Speculation had abounded on Ganot’s future with the program after the Rainbow Warriors lost 10 of their last 13 games and missed the eight-team Big West tournament by finishing in ninth place at 15-16 overall and 7-13 in BWC play.

UH is scheduled to play its final season in the Big West in 2025-26 before joining a stronger basketball conference, the Mountain West, in 2026-27.

The last time the program had a so-called lame-duck, non-interim head coach was in the 2006-07 season, when Riley Wallace coached out the last of his contract to complete a 20-year tenure. Then-AD Herman Frazier hired associate head coach Bob Nash to succeed him.

Ganot received a three-year extension from former AD David Matlin after UH finished third in the 2021-22 regular season and reached the Big West tournament semifinals.

But attendance dipped to historic lows at the Stan Sheriff Center for the program over the last three years. Meanwhile, among UH’s listed net deficit of $2.1 million for its 21-sport athletic department for fiscal year 2023-24, its deficit for men’s basketball alone was $1.2 million.

Ganot, a former Saint Mary's and UH assistant coach from Tenafly, N.J., guided the Rainbow Warriors to Big West regular-season and tournament championships, a record 28 wins and UH's first NCAA Tournament win in his first season of 2015-16, when he inherited a talented roster from the controversy-mired Gib Arnold era and successfully paired it with his own brand of structure.

However, UH has not been in late-season contention for a regular-season championship since that first year and is 2-7 in Big West tournament games over the last nine seasons. UH's losing Big West record in 2024-25 was a first in the league and it failed to qualify for a conference tournament for the first time since 2010 in the WAC.

For his 10-year UH career, Ganot is 171-118 overall (.592), including a 17-0 mark against non-Division-I opponents in official games, and 96-77 (.555) in Big West play. 

Meanwhile, offseason roster movement began in earnest Monday. Two-year forward Akira Jacobs entered the NCAA transfer portal, the national recruiting tracker VerbalCommits reported.

The 6-foot-10 Jacobs, a Yokohama native who competed for Japan in the Paris 2024 Olympics, was touted as a preseason candidate to have a breakout sophomore season but it happened only in flashes. He averaged 6.9 points and 2.6 rebounds in 18.9 minutes per game, up from 2.6 and 1.0 as a freshman. He shot 41.1% from the field and 30.6% on 3s.

Jacobs posted on his Instagram story, "Thank you Hawaii for the past 2 years! Truly grateful for all the experiences, opportunities, and relationships I was able to make. I'm excited for the next step in my journey!"

Also Monday, VerbalCommits posted that freshman guard Jacopo Van der Knaap, the program's first recruit from Italy, has entered the portal. Van der Knaap totaled two minutes in two games played early in the season.

Tanner Cuff, a 6-foot-7 guard who played at Evansville the last two seasons, committed to play the 2025-26 season as a graduate transfer for the Rainbow Warriors. He credited assistant coach Gibson Johnson as his point of contact in an interview with KHON2; Johnson, while at Utah Tech, had recruited Cuff out of Salt Lake Community College before he landed at Evansville.

He started all 32 games in 2024-25 with averages of 8.8 points, a team-high 6.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.2 turnovers per game while shooting 49.5% from field, 33.3% on 3-pointers and 60.2% on free throws.

The Purple Aces went 11-21, including 8-12 in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Note: The story has been updated with a quote from Akira Jacobs and note on Jacopo Van der Knaap entering the transfer portal.

Brian McInnis covers the state’s sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii. He can be reached at brian.mcinnis@charter.com.