When John Montgomery walked into the gym for the first Hawaii basketball practice of the fall, none of the Rainbow Warriors’ players batted an eye or bent an ear.

“We’re kind of used to having new guys and new coaches come around,” Aaron Valdes said.

This was different, though, at least from the perspective of the 32-year-old Montgomery, a former assistant coach at California and most recently the director of operations at San Francisco.

The first practice was Oct. 2, a Friday. Montgomery’s first official day of work as a UH assistant was that Thursday.

“I think he understands that he’s gotta jump in the fire a little bit, and he … did that with us because of the timing of when he came here,” head coach Eran Ganot said.

Montgomery, a Bay Area guy, was the quiet assistant those first few practices as he soaked up his new environs. In a sense, it was a flashback to his childhood, when he’d sit next to Stanford’s head coach for hours and watch game film, not yet fully grasping it all but attempting to learn through osmosis.

Montgomery is the son of the legendary Mike Montgomery, one of the top 25 winningest coaches in NCAA Division I men’s hoops history with 677.

“You don’t want to come in here and all of a sudden have all the answers,” UH’s Montgomery said. “So you’ve got to figure out what your role is, what is expected, how the players want to be coached. So that was definitely a challenge.”

He was a last-minute replacement for Norm Parrish, the staff’s would-be elder statesman from Utah who left his new job in Manoa just a few months after accepting it. The learning curve for Montgomery was steep — even with prior knowledge of some of UH’s players from his previous stops. He also had the benefit of spending time unofficially with Saint Mary’s for a few weeks over the summer, learning many of the same schemes that the ex-Gael assistant Ganot has implemented at UH.

“We’re fortunate to have him,” Ganot said. “He’s young but experienced. … He’s good on the floor, he’s a good recruiter, and he’s very organized and prepared. He’s very detail oriented. He’s already helped us a lot.”

The Montgomery name represents a dichotomy for John. It comes with respect, but not necessarily from anything he’s done — yet.

“I know I have to make a name for myself in this profession and do it on my own,” Montgomery said. “I can’t just rely on the fact that I’m his son.”

He wouldn’t necessarily call it pressure. Pressure to him is the day-to-day grind of being prepared — be it in UH’s West Coast and European recruiting, team academics, scout preparation for an opponent or analyzing the Rainbows’ most recent rebounding performance.

“I think you’ll drive yourself crazy if you try to live up to something,” John said. “I’m not (doing this) necessarily for him. I know that he’s the biggest supporter from afar.”

And soon, from up close. John’s parents and sister are traveling from the Bay Area to attend the upcoming Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic over the holidays. UH (7-1) opens it up against Northern Iowa (7-3) in Tuesday’s nightcap.

Mike Montgomery, 68, a self-styled “old-school coach,” was also a stickler for the details over his four-decade-plus career.

“I’d like to think he saw it done the right way. So he knows what works and has a sense for the game,” said the elder Montgomery, now a college hoops TV analyst. “I think that helps most coaches’ sons who go in because they have an understanding of the game from having watched it and being around it.”

In childhood John was immersed in basketball every day, known by Stanford watchers as a ball boy over many of his father’s 18 years with the Cardinal. As a teen, he bleached his hair to imitate Stanford standout Casey Jacobsen. (As it happens, Jacobsen is the younger brother of UH assistant Adam Jacobsen.) He’d hang out with the likes of Michael Jordan at basketball camps.

Just two years out from his college career as a reserve point guard at Loyola Marymount, he joined his father’s new staff at Cal as an operations director. He’d spend the last three of six seasons there as a full assistant coach, right up until Mike retired in 2014. It allowed him to see a different side of his father that wasn’t visible in regular family life. The two are closer for it.

“He’s very intense, a very competitive guy,” John Montgomery said. “I think you have to be in this profession. It was good working for him, just because it showed me what it took to be successful. Looking from the outside, you’d never totally understand it until you’re in the foxhole with somebody.”

Mike Montgomery didn’t want to directly compare his son’s coaching style to his own, but said John is positioned well to take advantage of the modern demands of the business, be it social media or the changed landscape of recruiting.

“I used to say something to him about, ‘God, I can’t believe this,’ ” Mike said. “He’d go, ‘That’s kind of what’s going on now. That’s the new thing.’ ”

As his weeks at UH have progressed into months, John Montgomery has become a reliable voice at practices to support Ganot and fellow assistants Jacobsen and Chris Acker. As Ganot said, “He’s making the leap here.”

He’s earned the trust of the UH players, particularly the wings.

“We’ve gotten better since the season started and he’s got a big part to do with that,” Valdes said.

At last, John Montgomery is making himself heard.