The Division I bracket for the Snapple/HHSAA Girls Basketball State Championships is nearly a duplicate of last year’s layout, which means there are major matchups from Day 1 on.

Having a round number of eight or 16 would seem nicer to work with, but with half of the field hailing from the Oahu Interscholastic Association — which has roughly 50 percent of the state’s D-I girls basketball teams — the by-laws make scheduling quite inflexible. With teams from the same league split up when possible in the opening round, navigating the limitations of the by-laws also mean that the Interscholastic League of Honolulu runner-up usually winds up facing the OIA’s third-place team early in the tourney: the second-day quarterfinal round.

In the opening round tonight, the leader in the OIA West during the regular season, Mililani (16-4, 10-0), will visit ILH runner-up Kamehameha (15-6, 7-3 ILH). In last week’s rankings, Kamehameha was No. 3 and Mililani No. 9. This is the only opening-round game pairing two top-10 teams. There’s one game tonight that pits two unranked teams on the Valley Isle: Kaiser (16-10, 7-3 OIA East) vs. Maui (12-10, 8-7 MIL).

The fireworks get brighter in Thursday’s quarterfinals. BIIF champion Waiakea (20-4, 8-1), seeded second in the tourney, will meet the Kalani-Radford winner. Third-seeded Lahainaluna, the MIL champion, will take on the Kamehameha-Mililani winner. In other words, the seeding committee considers Kalani-Radford a better draw for Waiakea than Kamehameha-Mililani.

Though Kamehameha beat Waiakea 64-51 in the Kaiser Invitational two months ago, that has no bearing in the pairings. Waiakea, a league champion, earned its bye.

Lahainaluna (19-4, 13-0 MIL), meanwhile, lost to Kalani (20-6, 10-1 OIA East) at the Konawaena Invitational. The Lady Lunas also beat Kamehameha, one week earlier, in the Matsumoto Law Group Black and Gold Classic.

The parity of this year’s field is real. Abundance. Four-time defending state champion Konawaena (10-4, 9-1) lost to Waiakea twice, including a BIIF championship battle on the Wildcats’ home court. The young ’Cats, led by junior Caiyle Kaupu, are also dependent on underclassmen who are trying to fill the shoes of last year’s top two players in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser’s All-State Fab 15 voting, Cherilyn Molina and Mikayla Tablit.

The path for Konawaena, even as an unseeded entry, could be more friendly than any other team aside from top-seeded ‘Iolani (20-6, 9-1 ILH). The Wildcats host Leilehua tonight. The winner advances to a quarterfinal matchup against fourth-seeded Kahuku (14-4, 10-0 OIA East), which stunned Kalani in the OIA final.

No team has been able to stymie Kahuku point guard/rebounding machine Leiah Naeata, who scored 33 points in the league championship game. Kahuku’s relative youth is a potential factor, as is Konawaena’s senior-free roster, but there it is, a chance for Konawaena to reach the semifinals, where ‘Iolani is likely to be waiting.

Bobbie Awa has done more with less than most coaches in rebuilding years. The Wildcats coach has guided them to nine state crowns in the past 15 years. First, they’ll have to contain Leilehua’s dangerous scorers, Asia Castillo and Kaylen Kamelamela.