Kahuku is the top seed of the Snapple/HHSAA Boys Basketball Division I State Championships, which tips off on Monday.
The brackets and pairings were released late Saturday night. The Red Raiders, unbeaten in OIA play, will meet Monday’s Kalaheo-Maui winner on Wednesday at McKinley Student Council Gymnasium.
Defending state champion ‘Iolani open against Moanalua at ‘Iolani gym. In other Monday openers, Kalaheo plays at Maui, Kailua travels to play Konawaena and Leilehua plays at Kapolei.
Punahou is the No. 2 seed after beating ‘Iolani in the ILH championship game on Saturday night. The Buffanblu will play the Kailua-Konawaena winner on Wednesday at Radford’s James Alegre Gymnasium.
MIL champion Lahainaluna is the No. 3 seed and will meet the Leilehua-Kapolei winner on Wednesday, also at Radford.
Fourth-seeded Waiakea, which rallied past Konawaena in the BIIF title game on Friday, will face the Moanalua-‘Iolani winner on Wednesday at McKinley.
‘Iolani beat Punahou in last year’s state championship game, 45-40.
All first-round losers are eliminated
This year’s finals will be played at Stan Sheriff Center.
St. Francis is the top seed in the eight-team D-II state tournament. The Saints will play OIA runner-up Farrington on Wednesday at Kalani.
Seabury Hall is the No. 2 seed and will play BIIF runner-up Hawaii Prep on Wednesday at St. Francis’ gym.
Third-seeded Kalani, the OIA champ, meets Le Jardin, also at St. Francis.
BIIF champion Honokaa will play KIF champion Kauai at Kalani’s gym.
Here are the brackets:
This is the third time this school year Moanalua has to play at Iolani in the first round of a State Tournament (girls’ volleyball, girls’ soccer, and now boys’ basketball). Moanalua has one of the best gyms in the State – how about giving them a home game for once? Iolani’s girls volleyball and girls soccer went on to win state titles – what a raw deal for Moanalua drawing road games at Iolani!
Why do 4 of the teams in first round games (50%) get home court advantage? That doesn’t seem fair AT ALL. It looks like that was somehow a situation that arose AFTER the homecourt teams made the tournament. So that there was a conscious decision that one of the teams in each of the games would receive the advantage (which, if you watch the way all schools jealously guard home dates during the regular season and even league championship tourneys, means the advantage is HUGE). Why can’t the leagues and HHSAA just do things fairly and reserve the 4 needed gyms well in advance and in a neutral fashion for opening round games in advance. Sure, even then there would be a chance homecourt would be an advantage, but at least it wouldn’t be REQUIRED, to the GUARANTEED detriment to 50% of the teams in the first round. Lack of planning, forethought, initiative, integrity and just plain common sense abounds in local high school sports
I have no idea how the courts got chosen. But maybe they wanted to make sure each “league” had a home court?? That’s why it’s one ILH school, one OIA school, one BI, and one Maui?
@ Loco Moco, Iolani is the ILH #2. Moanalua is the OIA #4. Why should a #4 get to host a game over a #2? If you look across the board, all of the league #2’s are hosting first round games (Iolani, Konawaena, Kapolei, Maui). That is fair and consistent.
If Moanalua or any other team that is traveling wants to host a home game they could have finished #2 in their league or won the league title.
They are 4th. The OIA is lucky to get 6 teams in. The #4 team in the ILH, BIIF, and MIL is going to watch the games from the TV or stands.