Pilot hoops format underway

The new regional format in Hawaiian Airlines/HHSAA Division I Girls Basketball State Championships is about to take flight.

The pilot program, which now includes the Big Island Interscholastic Federation and Maui Interscholastic League as host sites in the first two rounds, will be evaluated, tweaked and improved after the two-week tourney is done.

First-round games will tip-off on Friday with games at Moanalua and McKinley. The second round — quarterfinals — will be played at Kealakehe, Lahaina and Blaisdell Arena.

Opening-round matchups of Oahu-based teams (Mililani-Radford and Maryknoll-Kailua) will be played on Oahu. Then the winners will move on to their respective quarterfinals bracket sites on the neighbor islands.

Maryknoll coach Chico Furtado hopes the format is adjusted next time to allow more time for travel. He prefers a Thursday/Saturday spacing.

"I think that (Friday/Saturday) format really isn’t very good. If it’s Thursday/Saturday, then you get the one day in-between to travel," Furtado said after his Spartans lost to Punahou in the ILH tournament final last Friday.

"What if we play a 7 o’clock game (on Friday). We don’t get home until 10 or 11 o’clock. Next day, back up, go on the flight, depending on what flight we take, then you get your hotel, your cars and it’s game time," he said.

Maryknoll found out on Sunday, when the seedings and pairings were announced by the HHSAA, that it would play Kailua 7 p.m. Friday at Moanalua.

But the essence of this new state-tourney format — having quadrants in the first two rounds — has certainly piqued interest.

"I don’t mind playing on the outer islands. I played on the outer islands the first year I coached girls (at Kalaheo) when they held the whole tournament at the (Hilo) Civic. I think that wasn’t a problem. If the outer island teams want to host, then they should be on a rotating basis. To have a (ILH or OIA) team fly up and play on the same day, we don’t even know if we’re going to win. We have to win Friday to go Saturday. So you have to make all these plans and you don’t even know if you’re going," he said.

Lahainaluna and Konawaena, in particular, draw sizable crowds at home.

"I understand the neighbor islands and their need to want to host and they’re always traveling (to Oahu)," Furtado said.

"Lahainaluna’s a good program and they have big crowds. If that’s the case, get back on a rotating basis every third year or fourth year."