Hawai‘i Basketball Reloads for Mountain West Conference Debut in 2026–27

Hawai‘i enters the 2026–27 season in an unusual position. The Rainbow Warriors are not rebuilding from failure. They are reconstructing after success.

Hawai‘i finished last season 24–9, captured the Big West Tournament championship boss’s m and returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade. The Rainbow Warriors’ season ended against Arkansas in the opening round, but the larger picture was significant: a nine-win improvement from the previous season and the program’s first trip back to March Madness since 2016.

Now comes a different challenge.

Hawai‘i officially entered the Mountain West on July 1, leaving the Big West after 14 seasons and bringing its basketball program into a conference with a long-established identity in the western United States. The move comes at the same time head coach Eran Ganot and his staff have been forced to replenish a roster that lost a substantial amount of the experience and production responsible for last season’s breakthrough.

That combination makes Hawai‘i one of the more intriguing newcomer stories in the Mountain West.

There are new players.

There is a new conference.

And there is now a new set of questions surrounding how quickly all of the pieces can come together.

This Is a Recalibration, Not a Traditional Rebuild

Hawai‘i announced 10 additions to its 2026–27 roster in June before later adding Australian guard Lueth Awan in July. The class includes players arriving from multiple levels of college basketball, international development systems and professional environments.

The coaching staff deserves credit for how it attacked the offseason.

There appears to be an intentional balance to the roster construction. Hawai‘i added scoring, length, older players, international experience, shooting and positional versatility rather than simply collecting transfer-portal names.

That doesn’t guarantee success.

Roster construction and team construction are two different things.

Hawai‘i appears to have done a respectable job of replenishing a depleted roster. The next part is more difficult: determining roles, developing chemistry and finding combinations that can survive an entirely different conference schedule.

Ganot did that effectively a year ago. His team found a formula that produced 24 victories, a conference championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance.

Now he has to do it again with different personnel.

Marcus Adams Jr. Brings a Proven Scoring Element

Marcus Adams Jr. is one of the most recognizable additions.

The 6-foot-8 forward arrives after spending last season at Arizona State, where he appeared in 14 games. His most productive college season came at CSUN in 2024–25, when he averaged 16.5 points per game, earned second-team All-Big West honors and shot 52.6 percent from the field.

That version of Adams is important to this Hawai‘i roster.

There is no question about the talent. He has size, scoring ability and enough offensive versatility to give Hawai‘i something it will need as it replaces veteran production.

The larger evaluation will be consistency.

Adams has already experienced several different environments during his college career. Hawai‘i gives him another opportunity to establish himself within a defined role and turn talent into dependable production.

For the Rainbow Warriors, he shouldn’t have to carry the entire offense. The more important development may be whether Hawai‘i can place him in situations that allow him to score efficiently while remaining connected to the other parts of the offense.

If that happens, Adams can become significantly more than a recognizable transfer name.

He can become one of the pieces around which this new roster is built.

Lueth Awan Represents a Different Type of Newcomer

Lueth Awan arrives in Mānoa by a completely different route.

The 6-foot-7 guard from Sydney spent the 2025–26 season as a development player with the Sydney Kings of Australia’s National Basketball League. He appeared briefly in 13 games, including time during the NBL Finals, as Sydney captured the league championship.

His numbers at that level are not what interest me most.

The developmental environment does.

Awan has already spent time practicing in a professional basketball structure, competing around experienced players and learning the preparation that comes with professional basketball. Now the evaluation becomes how much of that experience translates when he receives a larger responsibility at the Division I level.

His length immediately stands out.

At 6-foot-7 on the perimeter, there is potential defensive versatility. Hawai‘i’s own staff has emphasized his defensive ability, athleticism and two-way upside.

I want to see how he handles the basketball against pressure, how consistently he makes reads, how the perimeter shot develops and how effectively his length translates defensively against Mountain West guards.

This is exactly the type of player where the box score doesn’t tell the complete story.

Awan may not arrive with the NCAA production attached to Adams’ name, but the developmental background makes him one of Hawai‘i’s most interesting newcomers to watch.

Tanner Cuff May Be Just as Important

Then there is Tanner Cuff.

Technically, Cuff isn’t a new addition to Hawai‘i. From a basketball standpoint, however, he almost functions like one.

The 6-foot-7 graduate guard was expected to have an important role last season before suffering a season-ending knee injury prior to the regular season. He never appeared in a game and ultimately redshirted.

His return gives Hawai‘i something that can’t always be manufactured through the transfer portal: experience.

Before coming to Hawai‘i, Cuff played 67 games during two seasons at Evansville. He started all 32 games in 2024–25 and averaged 8.8 points, 6.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists and 1.3 steals while playing nearly 33 minutes per game.

Those numbers tell us that he has been trusted with responsibility before.

What we don’t know yet is how everything looks after losing an entire season.

That is what makes Cuff particularly intriguing to me.

There will be athletic guards throughout the Mountain West capable of pressuring the basketball, turning the corner and forcing defenders to make decisions in space. Cuff has excellent positional size, but I want to see how he handles that athleticism after the long layoff.

Can he control pace?

Can he consistently initiate offense against pressure?

How well does he move defensively?

Can his size and experience compensate when facing quicker guards?

Those aren’t criticisms. They are evaluation points that have to be answered on the floor.

If Cuff returns close to the player Hawai‘i originally expected to have last season, his experience could provide an important stabilizing presence for a roster filled with new faces.

Hawai‘i Didn’t Replenish the Roster With Only Three Players

Adams, Awan and Cuff may provide the central storyline, but the staff went considerably deeper in constructing this roster.

Bol Dengdit, a 6-foot-11 senior from UC San Diego, arrives after starting all 34 games last season and averaging 10.7 points and 5.2 rebounds while earning honorable-mention All-Big West recognition. His size, experience and familiarity with Hawai‘i from Big West competition should help the transition.

Jaden Matingou brings another level of backcourt experience after averaging 11.9 points and a team-leading 4.3 assists at Division II Point Loma. He earned first-team all-conference honors while helping Point Loma win regular-season and conference tournament championships.

Chance Trujillo averaged 12.3 points at Utah Tech and made 73 three-pointers, while Zack Davidson was averaging 14.0 points on 61.7 percent shooting at Northern Arizona before a season-ending injury.

There are layers to this recruiting class.

Some players bring production.

Some bring size.

Some bring experience.

Others bring projection.

That is what makes Hawai‘i difficult to assess in August.

There is enough talent to be interested, but there are also enough moving parts that declaring what this team will become would be premature.

The Mountain West Will Provide a Different Test

Hawai‘i’s entrance into the Mountain West adds another dimension.

This isn’t just about replacing departed players. It is about preparing a reconstructed roster for a new collection of opponents, different personnel and another style of week-to-week competition.

That matters particularly at the guard positions.

Cuff will be returning after missing an entire season. Awan is moving from a professional developmental role into college basketball. Matingou is making the transition from Division II. Other guards will also be adjusting to new responsibilities.

The individual backgrounds are different, but the challenge is shared.

They have to establish a functional Mountain West backcourt.

That requires more than scoring.

Ball security, defensive discipline, decision-making, physicality, pace and the ability to execute late in possessions will determine how quickly this group can become dependable.

The same principle applies throughout the roster.

The pieces make sense on paper.

Now they have to fit.

Ganot Has Another Coaching Job in Front of Him

Eran Ganot deserves credit for what Hawai‘i accomplished last season.

The Rainbow Warriors didn’t simply sneak into the NCAA Tournament. They improved by nine victories, won their final Big West Tournament championship and returned the program to the NCAA field after a 10-year absence.

The 2026–27 challenge may be completely different.

Last season was about maximizing one roster.

This season will be about constructing another one while simultaneously transitioning into a new conference.

Finding the correct rotations may take time.

Determining who handles the basketball late in games may take time.

Establishing who provides consistent shooting, who guards the opponent’s best perimeter player and which combinations work defensively may take time.

That is why Hawai‘i should be one of the more interesting teams to monitor early in the Mountain West season.

The coaching staff has done its offseason work.

Now the basketball has to validate it.

Final Take

Hawai‘i isn’t entering the Mountain West empty-handed.

Marcus Adams Jr. provides proven scoring ability. Lueth Awan brings size, defensive potential and experience from a professional development system. Tanner Cuff returns with substantial college experience after losing an entire season to injury. Around them, Hawai‘i has added veterans, shooting, frontcourt size and players accustomed to winning.

The roster has been replenished.

Whether it has been completely rebuilt will be determined by role clarity and continuity.

For Unit 1 Hoop Source, that is what makes Hawai‘i worth following closely.

There is no reason to crown the Rainbow Warriors in August, and there is no reason to dismiss them because of how much personnel they lost.

The proper evaluation sits in between.

Hawai‘i is a program coming off its first NCAA Tournament appearance in a decade, entering a new conference with a largely recalibrated roster and a head coach who now has to make the new pieces function together.

That uncertainty is part of the intrigue.

The talent is there.

The experience is there.

The questions are there.

Now Hawai‘i has to put the product on the floor.

At Unit 1 Hoop Source, we don’t chase noise — we study film, define roles, and project truth.

Editorial Disclaimer

This article combines verified background information with independent basketball evaluation and projection by Unit 1 Hoop Source. Evaluations represent observations and analysis, not guarantees of future performance.

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