Boys basketball

For decades, both as a player and a coach, Kelly Grant valued the perimeter shot. Whether it was emphasized by his high school and college coach, Tony Sellitto, or by himself later as a coach, Grant’s teams at Kaimuki, then at Maryknoll, have often been very good from the 3-point arc. On Saturday, the Spartans pounded the ball into the post, looking very little like last year’s perimeter-oriented team. Then came backup guard Makoto Kamata, who sank two treys during […]

The Kahuku basketball team will be defending its Division I state championship this year, and the arrival of Galen Tolu Smith, a transfer from Mississippi, might make it just a bit easier. The 6-foot-10 senior center/forward who enrolled at the school in the fall recently signed a letter of intent to play for Western Kentucky. The person who knows him best, his father Galen Smith, concisely gave us his take on what Hawaii basketball fans can expect to see on […]

The eye test before tip-off was incomplete. The McKinley Tigers, a group of fine, young gentlemen, don’t have a lot of height, girth or swagger. But after the tip, it was all business for coach Duane Omori’s team. Even this early, scarcely one week into preseason play, the Tigers are moving the ball, spacing the court, battling on the boards against bigger teams. McKinley took it on the chin in a wipeout loss to defending D-II state champion St. Francis […]