Hawaii Has Just Enough Right Things to Cause Arkansas Razorbacks Trouble

Calipari history of locking unknown teams into history forever may work against Hogs

Arkansas forward Malique Ewin (12) celebrates dunking against Mississippi during the second half of a SEC tournament semifinal game at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn., Saturday, March 14, 2026. | ANDREW NELLES / THE TENNESSEAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

A quick poll around the state of Arkansas about the Hawaii Rainbow Warriors basketball team will likely reveal shock that the state of Hawaii has an actual Division I basketball team.

If the Rainbow Warriors were ever on television, it would have been well past when the people of Arkansas went to bed featuring an opponent Hogs fans would have been equally surprised to know existed in most cases. The general story of the Razorbacks' first round opponent is a lot like Miami of Ohio.

They are a team that racked up 24 wins against an incredibly weak schedule, yet, unlike Miami, topped it off by winning the Big West Championship, 71-64, over the UC Irvine Anteaters. However, also unlike Miami, the Rainbow Warriors didn't go undefeated.

They lost to a 12-win Oregon team and an Arizona State team that just fired its coach, along with five programs that sport a variation of names that begin with UC or Cal State. Still, despite the less than impressive resume heading into the first round against the Razorbacks, it's worth the time to look deeper into the team Arkansas will face.

After all, head coach John Calipari is notorious for dropping NCAA Tournament games to teams few who study the game know much about. It hasn't been that long ago since he lost to Oakland (Not of California) and made the Saint Peter's Peacocks a national household name for a few weeks.

Hawaii's Head Coach

When it comes to pure intelligence, this might be where the Rainbow Warriors find an edge. Longtime coach Eran Ganot played basketball at elite Northeast college, Swarthmore.

For those needing perspective, Swarthmore is like Hendrix College on steroids. It's highly respected education comes with a pricetag to match.

It costs about $63,000 a year to get in the door. Ganot took advantage of his time there, earning a degree in economics and also sociology/anthropology.

He displayed leadership skills while there, serving as team captain two years in a row. As for the degree, while unique in coaching circles, it has become useful at a place like Hawaii.

At one point shortly after the selections came out, there was a graphic going around that showed the biggest financial mismatches of the first round. Obviously, Arkansas and Hawaii made the list that indicated Ganot had to assemble his team with only 10% of the money available to the Razorbacks.

Whether that was NIL or across the board was unclear. Either way, Ganot having every tool in his belt to stretch dollars for a university tucked away on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean is important to his success. As for his sociology degree, having a deeper understanding of humans and how their specific surroundings affect them is especially important.

He can't drag every young man who can dribble a basketball to Hawaii just because he has the talent and wants to play in what he thinks is a constant vacation. It's highly valuable that Ganot can more easily assess whether the isolation or distractions will be a poor fit for a player who might have slightly better skills than the guy who will be able to handle all that comes with going to college so far from the mainland and family.

As for winning, he's done his share. Ganot has been heavily loyal to Hawaii. He was an assistant there for three years, then served five years at St. Mary's before returning back to the island where he won the Big West Coach of the Year in his first season as head coach back in 2016.

That was his last Coach of the Year until this season despite having a winning percentage of over 60% at Hawaii with 191 wins.

Type of Game to Expect

It's hard to tell a whole lot about the Rainbow Warriors because of the teams they have played. Most of the time they put up mid-80s to low 90s, but that's against borderline Division II schools.

The only three times they played against schools Arkansas fans would recognize, it didn't go so well. They put up 59 in a one-point loss to Oregon, 66 in a home win over UTEP and 76 in a home loss to Arizona State. However, losing too many games where opponents score in the high 90s into the 100s is probably a big reason why Bobby Hurley no longer has his job with the Sun Devils despite posting another winning record.

The game is going to run through 7-foot, 240 pound center Issac Johnson. He's big, but much like the rest of team, he's not explosive. He leads the roster with 14 points and six rebounds per game.

The only two other players to average double figures are guard Dre Bullock at 13.5 and forward Harry Rouhliadeff at 10.8. However, the magic in the sauce is the way Hawaii rebounds as a team, which is a huge weakness for Arkansas.

Four of the starting five average at least five rebounds and the Rainbow Warriors go nine deep on players who average at least 2.6 rebounds per game. That's right. Nine.

That's where things could go wrong for Arkansas. The Hogs are notoriously short-handed and Calipari keeps harping on nagging injuries continuing to slow his team.

If Ganot can continuously run fresh legs into the game and attack the glass, Hawaii can get Arkansas into foul trouble and then feast in the paint as the Razorbacks back off trying to avoid fouling out.

It's not likely the Rainbow Warriors take down the Hogs, but there is a match-up formula where in one of those NCAA Tournament adrenaline fuelded "Any Given Thursday" scenarios, Hawaii can join the likes of St. Peter's and Oakland on the list of teams Calipari made famous in March.