While college basketball’s elite continues navigation through the brackets, the University of Hawaii has done some successful bracketing of a different kind in its choice for a new women’s head coach.

You know, like when you’re hitting golf balls or shooting a gun at the range. Too far left, aim to the right. Now you’re too far the other way. Go for between the first shot and the second and maybe you’ll hit the target.

You hear a lot of talk from the decision-makers on how Laura Beeman is simply and unanimously the best candidate of the nearly 50 applicants for the job, and that’s why she got it. True or not, this much is certain: Beeman is very different from her predecessors, Jim Bolla and Dana Takahara-Dias.

Bolla had the track record as a college head coach, and a successful one. But he was an outsider, a former rival, no less, as the UNLV coach when UH was previously in the Big West.

His replacement, Takahara-Dias, had almost no college coaching experience. But she was an insider, an alumna of the Wahine program who had gone on to success as a high school coach at Moanalua.

Unfortunately for them and the UH women’s basketball team, in both cases their flaws trumped their strengths.

Bolla had been out of coaching for several years, and the game had passed him by. It ended badly for him at UH with a forced resignation amid accusations of abusing players.

Takahara-Dias was a good choice to repair morale, but a gamble when it came to X’s and O’s. Time ran out on her after three losing seasons.

Enter Beeman, who could be the best of both worlds.

Like Bolla, she has an extensive history of college coaching and a winning record. Like Takahara-Dias, she played women’s college basketball and can relate to her players as someone who has been through what they are going through.

Unlike Bolla, there is no eight-year gap in her college coaching resume. Unlike Takahara-Dias, there is a college coaching resume of much more than one year.

My impression is Beeman will be tough but fair. She is articulate and has a sense of humor, but will be a no-nonsense type of coach.

I think preparation and quick adjustments will be strengths. Within 15 seconds of learning her team will play Baylor next season, Beeman was describing a tactic by which to try to slow down 6-foot-8 Brittney Griner.

“I don’t know why people don’t force her to play pick-and-roll defense,” she said.

Of course it’s going to take a lot more than that for UH to compete with the Lady Bears, who routed Georgia Tech behind Griner’s 35 points in an NCAA tournament regional semifinal Saturday.

But at least UH has hired a coach who doesn’t seem to possess the same flaws as the two before her.