{"id":230763,"date":"2026-03-14T19:22:38","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T05:22:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=230763"},"modified":"2026-03-16T07:10:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T17:10:27","slug":"mens-bkb-ncaa-bound","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2026\/03\/14\/mens-bkb-ncaa-bound\/","title":{"rendered":"ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½<\/abbr> men earn ticket to Big Dance face No. 4 Arkansas"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\"big<\/p>\n

The University of Hawaiʻi<\/span> at M\u0101noa Rainbow Warriors men’s basketball captured the Big West Men’s Basketball Championship with a 71–64 victory over the UC Irvine Anteaters on Saturday, March 14, earning an automatic berth to the NCAA<\/abbr> Men’s Basketball Tournament in the team\u2019s final conference game before moving to the Mountain West Conference.<\/p>\n

The team found out on Selection Sunday that they will face No.<\/abbr> 4 Arkansas on Thursday, March 19 at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon. The Warriors earned a No.<\/abbr> 13 ranking. <\/p>\n

\"Isaac<\/p>\n

Hawaiʻi<\/span> (23 wins this season) returned to the conference title game for just the third time in program history and the first time since 2016.<\/p>\n

ÌÇÐÄVlog¹Ù·½<\/abbr> hustled on defense putting up 10 blocks, several in key moments in the final minutes. Isaac Johnson led four Rainbow Warriors in double figures with a game-high 22 points and was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Player. Harry Rouhliadeff posted his second straight double-double with 15 points and 12 rebounds and Dre Bullock symbolically punctuated the victory with a windmill dunk. Isaiah Kerr added 10 key points off the bench.<\/p>\n

The win also represented a full-circle moment for the program under head coach Eran Ganot, whose debut season in 2015–16 produced a school-record 28 wins and a Big West title. This year\u2019s 23 victories mark the most for Hawaiʻi<\/span> since that championship and the last invitation to the Big Dance.<\/p>\n

The championship matchup capped a season-long rivalry between Hawaiʻi<\/span> and UC<\/abbr> Irvine, which split the regular-season series. The Rainbow Warriors claimed a dramatic 67–66 win in Honolulu on January 10, on Hunter Erickson\u2019s buzzer-beating shot, while the Anteaters answered with an 87–76 overtime victory in Irvine on January 29.<\/p>\n

The championship comes after a rebound season for the Rainbow Warriors, who did not qualify for last year\u2019s Big West Tournament after finishing with their only losing conference record in 14 years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Hawaiʻi<\/span> Rainbow Warriors capped their final season in the Big West Conference with a championship performance, defeating UC<\/abbr> Irvine 71\u201364 on Saturday to earn an automatic berth to the NCAA<\/abbr> Men\u2019s Basketball Tournament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":230766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1362],"tags":[58,82,9,550],"class_list":["post-230763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-athletics","tag-basketball","tag-uh-manoa","tag-manoa-athletics","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/big_west_basketball_champs.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230763"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230778,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230763\/revisions\/230778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}