Attending Kalaheo High was not originally in Josh Ko’s basketball blueprint.

Ko went to Punahou from seventh to ninth grade, looking like one of the most promising stars in the Buffanblu chain. But after his parents poured every resource into Ko’s passion, the money ran out and they had to tell him that his days at Punahou were over.

Ko panicked, asking everyone and anyone for financial aid but not getting any. Eventually, he came to terms with the fact that he would be attending his local public school as a sophomore. He thinks the decision might have hurt his mother the most, since she is all about education. But he quickly learned that an education is about getting out of it what you put into it, no matter where you go.

"It kind of hurt a little bit," Ko said. "But looking back, Punahou to me was a little bit too fast-paced. I mean constant thinking. It was just tiring, it got me tired a lot, so I’m glad I made the switch.

"To be honest, Kalaheo is a more slower pace, but for educational purposes it still provides what I need to get to a good college on my own."

Ko wants to get through the season before seeing what his options for the future are, but the basketball part of his life is already a success. He ran the show for Kalaheo’s Division II state championship team last year as a junior, earning Star-Advertiser Fab 15 honors in the process. This year, the Mustangs moved up in class to Division I and appear to be even better with a No. 3 preseason ranking in a vote of coaches and media.

Ko isn’t the only who made the Punahou to Kalaheo switch. Coach Alika Smith moved over to his alma mater after guiding the Buffanblu to a 24-4 record in 2010.

Ko has developed a penchant for hitting game-winners — much as Smith used to — beating Moanalua with a jumper at the buzzer last year and a winner in overtime against an Australian team this year. He has become so proficient at beating the clock that when he missed an off-balance 3-pointer with two defenders on him at the buzzer against Yates (Texas) at the ‘Iolani Classic, there was a gasp of disappointment throughout the gym.

But the long-range shooting was not his best moment of the game against the nationally ranked squad. At one point Ko squared up a Yates defender and made him bite on a jab-step and took off for the hoop. Another defender stepped in front of him, but Ko left that guy in the dust, too, before putting the ball in. Ko barely remembers the moment when he became more than a spot-up shooter in the eyes of those in attendance.

"I didn’t know how good the play was until my parents told me afterward how everybody cheered," Ko said. "It was all instinctive to me. To me, it was like just another day, but I guess since it was against a great mainland team like Yates it made it that much more special."

Ko would never have imagined doing that against one of the nation’s premier defensive teams a year earlier. Smith put Ko at the point last season because he was the team’s best ballhandler.

This season, with point guards Silia Tucker and Kupaa Harrison wearing orange, Ko is asked to shoulder more of the scoring load.

"Last year, I don’t think I had the strength or courage to go against the big guys because I felt like I would just get pummeled," Ko said. "But this year since the summer passed and coach Alika put more faith in me, my courage went up and from working out at the gym I feel a lot stronger, so going to the basket I have no fear."

Since putting his game in Smith’s hand’s, Ko has developed into one of the best players in the state, even if no college coaches have told him so directly.

"That has been his goal all along and he has the tools to do it," Smith said. "He has come a long way, and there has been some interest. These kids have been good to me and it’s part of a coach’s job to be good to them and do everything I can for them."

When Smith took Ko and his teammates on a mainland trip in the summer, Ko said he learned "how basketball is truly meant to be played,." But Ko didn’t get any feelers from the many college coaches in attendance because it was a dead period for recruiting. No worries, though, if his coach can restore Kalaheo’s program he can certainly work another miracle. The Mustangs made the state tournament 20 years in a row, but sat out 2010 and ’11 before winning it all last season.

"I know Coach Alika is putting something together for me," Ko said. "He told me, ‘Don’t worry, Josh, I will help you as best as I can to get you into college because, to me, you are a Division I college player.’ That right there showed me how much trust he had in me, so I have all of the faith in Coach Alika to get me where I need to go."

Despite the faith Ko has in Smith, the University of Hawaii legend is cemented in second-place among Ko’s favorite coaches. And nobody is going to take that top spot, because you never forget your first coach.

For Ko, that was his dad.

"My dad coached me ever since I was a little boy," Ko said. "His coaching just changed my life. It showed how you can make a player better. My dad did everything he could to get me into the top training systems and training programs in the state of Hawaii and he also made a couple of friends out on the mainland because he knew that Hawaii was not the state to play basketball. He was smart enough to know that if I want people to see me I have to get to camps on the mainland, so we looked on websites and went to many camps on the mainland. I don’t even know how many."