Hawaii basketball begins new era in Mountain West

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – With less than a month away from tipoff, the University of Hawaiʻi men’s and women’s basketball teams were in Las Vegas Wednesday for their first-ever Mountain West media days.

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Both squads are preparing for their first run through the conference.

“I want us to establish a foundation,” said Rainbow Warriors head basketball coach Eran Ganot. “Obviously, we have a blueprint of how we want to run our program, but we do have a lot of new faces. We want to get the foundation with those new faces first and add as we go. That’s why we’ve been throwing them in the fire as well. You can’t tell their true talents till they’re comfortable or in shape.”

Preseason projections have the Rainbow Warriors finishing sixth overall, after making the NCAA tournament and winning the Big West tournament last year.

The team’s two returners, Tanner Cuff and Isaiah Kerr, anchor a roster that features over a dozen newcomers.

“Super excited,” Kerr said. “I think our guys are all fired up to be here and to be in this position, obviously, moving into a new conference and transitioning into this will be fun, and all the guys are excited.”

Meanwhile, the Rainbow Wahine were picked to finish fourth in the conference, and sharpshooter Bailey Flavell was named to the all-conference preseason squad.

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“(It) helps, just having a great connection, I think, on and off the court,” she said. “Even just having a lot of international players from Australia and Italy, I think we just all kind of play a similar style of play and I think that it really helps build that connection.”

Flavell had an outstanding rookie year and led the team in scoring and 3-pointers, earning her Big West Freshman of the Year accolades.

First-year head coach Khalilah Mitchell is using this training camp to install an up-tempo, balanced attack intended to wear teams out a system that requires her players to be in top shape.

“Every day I’m like, we’re not in shape, we’re not in shape, we’re not in shape,” Mitchell said. “Also a little bit of that is last year, so I have to do a better job at not comparing them from where they were last year, just understanding where they are for this style of play. They are getting way better than what they were.”

The Rainbow Wahine begin their preseason on Oct. 21 against Hawaii Pacific. They’ll have an early showdown with Oregon and Saint Mary’s.

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The men open their preseason Sunday, Oct. 25, against HPU.