  {"id":207985,"date":"2024-12-17T13:07:06","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T23:07:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=207985"},"modified":"2025-03-31T12:09:35","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T22:09:35","slug":"uh-manoa-esports-fall-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/12\/17\/uh-manoa-esports-fall-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"<abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa esports dominates fall season with multiple victories"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span><figure id=\"attachment_207988\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-207988\" style=\"width: 676px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-mw-smash-team.jpg\" alt=\"people standing and smiling\" width=\"676\" height=\"381\" class=\"size-full wp-image-207988\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-mw-smash-team.jpg 676w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-mw-smash-team-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-mw-smash-team-130x73.jpg 130w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 676px) 100vw, 676px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-207988\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Super Smash <abbr>Bros<\/abbr>. team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Âé¶¹´«Ã½<\/span> at M\u0101noa\u2019s esports program achieved its most successful season to date in fall 2024, with standout performances across multiple competitive games and significant industry partnerships.<\/p>\n<p>The &ldquo;Super Smash <abbr title=\"Brothers\">Bros<\/abbr>.&rdquo; team excelled in the Mountain West Conference with an impressive 17-1 record and wins against Boise State, Washington State, Nevada, Utah State and the University of New Mexico. Despite dropping its only match to San Jose State in the grand finals, the team\u2019s performance was groundbreaking.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_207989\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-207989\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-counter-strike-team-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"people smiling for a photo\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-207989\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-counter-strike-team-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-counter-strike-team-130x73.jpg 130w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/manoa-esports-counter-strike-team.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-207989\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa Counter-Strike 2 team<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The &ldquo;Counter-Strike 2&rdquo; team also excelled, ranking third nationally in the PlayFly league. <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> upset the third-seeded team and advanced to the semifinals, ultimately losing to second-seed Texas <abbr>A<\/abbr>&#38;<abbr>M<\/abbr> after a competitive 1-2 series. The team finished third out of 31 national teams in the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>The &ldquo;Rainbow Six Siege&rdquo; team secured an open playoff spot with a 5-2 regular season record and ranked 25th out of 64 teams in the Collegiate R6 playoffs.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Competitively, we\u2019ve had one of our best seasons to date, especially with our inclusion in the Mountain West Smash tournament,&rdquo; <abbr>UH<\/abbr> M\u0101noa esports Program Director Nyle Sky Kauweloa. &ldquo;Our &lsquo;Smash&rsquo; team went essentially unbeaten, and our &lsquo;Counter-Strike&rsquo; team is really on the up and up.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Beyond its competitive success, the program expanded its industry connections. In summer 2024, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/09\/16\/uh-talent-intern-top-esports-companies\/\">students completed internships and study abroad practicums with Gen.G and <abbr>T1<\/abbr> in South Korea<\/a>. The university has sent more students to South Korean esports programs than any other college since 2023.<\/p>\n<p>Nvidia also hired five <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Esports students and alumni after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2024\/06\/18\/nvidia-visits-uh-esports\/\">campus visits in April<\/a> to work remotely on <abbr title=\"Artificial Intelligence\">AI<\/abbr> projects.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead, the program will expand its Mountain West Conference participation in spring 2025, fielding teams in &ldquo;League of Legends,&rsquo; &ldquo;Overwatch&rdquo; and &ldquo;Valorant.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> Esports receives funding from the <a href=\"https:\/\/acmsystem.hawaii.edu\/\">Academy for Creative Media System<\/a>. Visit the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Esports team\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/UHEsport\">X<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/discord.com\/invite\/NUCPXMA\">Discord<\/a> pages. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/tag\/esports\/\">More stories on <abbr>UH<\/abbr>\u2019s esports program<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Beyond its competitive success, the program expanded its industry connections.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1405,1466,9],"class_list":["post-207985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-news","tag-esports","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-uh-manoa","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207985","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=207985"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213001,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207985\/revisions\/213001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}