Ganot breaks news of Aussie trip

Eran Ganot couldn’t help himself.

The night was going so well at the second annual Hawaii basketball Tip-off fundraiser event. Sold-out tables, a rollicking atmosphere and arena floor full (about 500) of diehard fans eager to donate their hard-earned cash toward the cause. There was even a notable return in the form of former coach Bob Nash.

Ganot, speaking on stage, called it the biggest fundraiser in program history, to loud applause.

Then he gave the fans an added, unexpected, to-this-point unreported cherry: The Rainbow Warriors will take a foreign tour to Australia next summer. It will be the second in program history, after the Warriors to Asia tour under Gib Arnold in 2011.

It’s been in the works behind the scenes for a while, and the details are still very much in the early stages. But UH is looking at playing four to six exhibition games in various Australian cities in August 2018. Sydney and Melbourne are likely possibilities.

(If you’ve been paying attention to Ganot’s stewardship of the program at all, you shouldn’t be shocked that the foreign tour destination is Australia.)

“We’re in the initial stages,” Ganot said after the Tip-off event. “Obviously we gotta raise some money to do that. I think at the end of the day, if we got to find a way to get it done, we will. That’s part of what I alluded to on stage. If we’re going to be the program we want to be, there’s certain things we have to do, non-negotiable, and we’ve gotta to fight tooth and nail to get it done. … The next logical step for us was to start being one of those programs that goes on a foreign tour every four years. It’s something that would be huge for our current team, huge for recruiting. It’s just something we need to do, and doing regularly. That will allow us to start planning ahead.

“We behind the scenes have had a lot of conversations and we’re ready to move forward and take it up a notch.”

UH could play teams from Australia’s NBL. If the August framework holds, UH’s 2018-19 newcomers could go on the trip, which would give UH an opportunity to make it a homecoming for three Aussies on the roster (Jack Purchase, Mate Colina, Owen Hulland).

Like the China trip a handful of years ago, fans have the option of traveling with the team if they can afford an as-yet-unannounced sum.

As for Wednesday night’s event, it was pretty clearly a success. Kanoa Leahey MC’d, Kawika Hallums put on the Kawika Hallums Show 2.0 (featuring Scott Robbs and Johnny White) in interviewing the UH assistants and some of the returning players, most notably seniors Gibson Johnson and Mike Thomas.

UH point guard and aspiring musician Brocke Stepteau even got coaxed to perform some lyrics to one of his tracks when it was spontaneously played over the Sheriff loudspeakers.

One last one from tonight: here was @BStepteau3 dropping some lines (after some coaxing) from one of his tracks. pic.twitter.com/QthLkSTHDV

— Brian McInnis (@Brian_McInnis) October 26, 2017

UH raised about $40 or $50K from last year’s debut event. There were hopes that it could exceed $80K this year between the table/seating sales, the robust silent auction, and a new live auction capped off by on-the-spot requests of straight-up donations from the audience.

“I think we wanted to continue to make this a first-class event,” Ganot said. “Everything’s about making it bigger and better, without losing its intimate feeling, personal touch and interactiveness. So, I’m just really pleased and so appreciative to the work that goes into this … people sacrifice their time.”

Ganot himself put up $5,000 of his own money for the program.

“I was fired up once I got on stage. This program means a lot to myself, my family, to a lot of people. A lot of people are sacrificing their time to get our program moving forward at the next level and certainly I feel like we should be jumping on that as well, so we did.”

Here were some shots from tonight:

Last year, at the first edition of the fundraiser, Ganot unveiled the design for a totally renovated, climate-controlled Gym 2. (Bidding recently went out on that and work is scheduled to happen after the 2017-18 season.)

There was another unveiling (sort of behind the scenes) at the fundraiser Wednesday night. Look for another entry in this space later Thursday about it.