SPOKANE, Wash. — Amid the earth-shaking upsets, heart-stopping buzzer beaters and pulsating madness of this NCAA tournament, there also has been 34-year-old Eran Ganot, the — to put it mildly — serene first-year head coach at Hawaii.
“‘God, is this guy’s heart beating? Is this guy alive?’ ” Randy Bennett, head coach at St. Mary’s, recalled thinking as Ganot, a former St. Mary’s assistant, worked one of his first games as a head coach. “He was so calm. He looked like he’d been coaching for 20 years.
“It was crazy.’’
And getting crazier.
Described by a former colleague as a “non-charasmatic leader,’’ Ganot — pronounced Ga-not — is guiding No. 13 Hawaii against No. 5 Maryland in the Round of 32 here Sunday and deeper into uncharted terrain for the Rainbow Warriors (28-5).
As boisterous as their coach is calm, the Rainbow Warriors upset No. 4 Cal Friday for the program’s first-ever NCAA victory. The team also set a single-season record with its 28th victory.
But don’t wait for the coach to celebrate.
When Hawaii won the Big West tournament championship March 12, athletics director David Matlin all but ordered Ganot to accept the trophy. The conference commissioner by tradition hands the trophy to the winning coach.
“He just wanted it to go right to the team,’’ Matlin said. “He just really didn’t want to be a part of it.’’
Reluctantly, with Hawaii drawing national attention after its victory over Cal, Ganot has started to warm up to interviews — despite his reaction upon hearing USA TODAY Sports was working on a story about him.
“I said, ‘Man, I thought the job was to sell papers. They’re not going to want to hear about me,’ ” Ganot said with a grin on Saturday. “I’m a private guy. I’m a simpleton.’’
A brainy simpleton, that is, who played Division III basketball at Swarthmore College, the prestigious liberal arts college near Philadelphia. When he graduated in 2003 with a degree in economics and sociology/anthropology, he had lined up a job with an investment bank.
Instead, he accepted a volunteer coaching position with Bennett, then an up-and-coming head coach at St. Mary’s in northern California. Ganot said his father, a Romanian immigrant, and his mother, an Israeli immigrant, were perplexed as Ganot screamed with delight after a phone call with Bennett.
“I said, ‘Randy Bennett just hired me,’ ” Ganot said. “Their next question was, ‘How much are you making?’ ”
The answer: nothing.
“They said, ‘What the heck is going on here?’ ” Ganot said. “But it’s my passion.’’
He couldn’t afford his own car for another five years and at one point traveled on a borrowed bicycle — until it was stolen. But he said the spartan lifestyle was well worth the chance to pursue a passion that involved something called knee basketball.
“We invented knee basketball,’’ Ganot’s twin brother, Asaf, told USA TODAY Sports.
Here’s how it worked: In the winters, when there was too much snow to play basketball in the driveway of their family’s home in Tenafly, N.J., they headed to the basement. Awaiting them was a kid’s-size basketball hoop and, because of the low ceilings, the identical twin brothers dropped to their knees and the battles commenced.
“Might have been a broken finger here and there,’’ Asaf Ganot said. “We played with a lot of jammed fingers. I think that shows his toughness.’’
Fanaticism was evident at Swarthmore, said Josh Loeffler, one of Eran Ganot’s former college teammates. Loeffler said he remembers encountering Ganot on the way to freshmen orientation, where most of the boys were wearing khaki shorts and polo shirts in attempt to impress the girls.
Ganot showed up in basketball shorts and a Nike basketball shirt, Leoffer recalled.
“He said, ‘Do you know how to get to the weight room?’’’ Loeffler said. “All he wanted to do is go to the gym and the weight room. He was always dressed as if a pickup game might break out.’’
Limited by a chronic back injury, Ganot still managed to play all four years and, as a senior, his teammates elected him captain. After completing his final season, Ganot told his coach he wanted to pursue a career in coaching.
“Do something else,’’ Lee Wimberly said he told Ganot while expressing dismay about the cheating by college coaches and long-shot odds of assistant coaches even getting a chance to run a program.
But Wimberly, a close friend of Bennett’s, provided the recommendation that set in motion Ganot’s career path: three years as a volunteer assistant at St. Mary’s, four years an assistant at Hawaii, five more years as an assistant at St. Mary’s and then back to Hawaii as head coach.
The irony: Coaches cheating, rather than impairing Ganot’s career, helped him land the job at Hawaii.
In 2010, Gib Arnold replaced the ousted Bob Nash as Hawaii’s head coach and planned to demote Ganot, then a full-time assistant at Hawaii. So Ganot returned to St. Mary’s.
Arnold was fired 10 days before the 2014-15 season because of NCAA rules violations, and Ganot, spared guilt by association, emerged as Hawaii’s top choice. He got the job after the school decided to part ways with interim coach Benjy Taylor following the 2014-15 season.
Hired to take over a program that now finds itself on three years probation and banned from the 2017 postseason because of violations committed under the previous coaching staff, Ganot found time to get married without an announcement just weeks before the season. He expresses gratitude — for his wife and her adopted daughter, for his shot to be a head coach and for his car.
Perhaps the most unassuming coach in the NCAA tournament, the serene coach who could not afford a car until his fifth year in coaching now drives a Hyundai Santa Fe. It’s a courtesy car that’s part of his three-year contact with Hawaii that pays him $225,000 in base season this season.
“When I got the car in Hawaii they were like, ‘Is this OK?’ ” Ganot said. “I’m like, ‘You guys have no idea. If you gave me anything I’d be pumped.’ ”
The head coach of a team on the verge of the Sweet 16 is happily driving a Hyundai Santa Fe in March?
Madness.
PHOTOS: Highlights from NCAA tournament's second round
