Team Aloha’s intangibles made the difference in California

With just two practices together, an undersized group of basketball players had little chance of doing much at a mainland All-Star tournament.

Nobody bothered telling Team Aloha that their lineup of under-6-foot players didn't stack up well against elite club teams with tons of Division I recruits and 6-foot-4 centers.

What the field at the Nike Storm and Swish Fall Shootout learned is that Team Aloha didn't need giants or hype. Skill and teamwork outdid all four of their opponents over the weekend at UC Santa Barbara's arena.

Coincidentally, Team Aloha defeated California Storm Black, a club that had enlisted Aloha's Shawna-Lei Kuehu (Punahou) for a Nike elite tournament last summer. Kuehu scored 21 points in the final to lead Team Aloha to a 60-48 win.

The team, coordinated and sponsored by the Hawaii High School Athletic Association and Mayor Mufi Hannemann, had a natural chemistry.

"None of us want to break up. We bonded really well," said Kuehu, a 5-foot-10 junior, who continues to attract more attention from Top 25 colleges.

"None of the teams expected a Hawaii team to come up and win. Hawaii is underlooked in girls basketball, but we have some of the best girls in the country. We proved that is true," she said.

Keisha Kanekoa added 13 points for Aloha, which trailed by 10 at halftime, but outscored the Storm 36-14 in the second half. As the point guard of a team that was routinely outsized, Kanekoa and her teammates relied on their basketball IQs.

"We went fullcourt man, then dropped off to a 2-3 and 1-3-1 (zones). We mixed it up. Occasionally, we'd go and trap on our own. Two of us would trap and everybody else would read it," Kanekoa said.

The taller mainland teams put their size and agility to use. California Swish Black was formidable physically.

"Those girls are huge. Their point guard was my height, but the rest was like, 'Wow.' They zoned us and trapped us," Kanekoa said. "But once we break the top and get to the middle, we score."

Jazzmin Awa-Williams of Konawaena gave Aloha a big boost off the bench in the final. Jamie Smith, Iolani's relentless low-post scorer, was another spark. She scored 18 points in the first game and patrolled the paint against many bigger forwards and centers.

"I had to step outside of the key," the 5-9 senior said. "Having to face teams taller than us was hard, but everything came out like I expected. I knew we could win."

Coach Dana Takahara-Dias made full use of her 12-player roster throughout the weekend, enabling Aloha to use fullcourt pressure much of the time. The press was key in bringing the team back against the Storm.

Their ample depth was also a key after Vicky Tagalicod suffered a broken foot in the first 2 minutes of Sunday's game against SGV of California.

If anything, the intangibles separated Team Aloha from their taller competition. Takahara-Dias noted the team's chemistry -- Star-Bulletin All-State players Kanekoa (Honokaa), Awa-Williams (Konawaena) and Tagalicod (Hilo) blended extremely well with their Oahu teammates.

"We clicked in the beginning," Kanekoa said. We were together from the start."

Takahara-Dias, drawing from her many years as a championship coach at Moanalua, recognized a pattern before the title game.

"We had to tell the kids one of the keys of the game is not to overpass," she said. "We had fastbreaks where everyone was trying to get their teammates to score."

Kuehu, who played with the Storm Black squad in two earlier games during the tourney to get more exposure, warned her team, as well.

"I told (Takahara-Dias) that this team has fast hands, so we only made the extra pass when we needed to," she said.

Other members of the team were: Nicole Fu, Maryknoll; Courtney Gaddis, Kalani; Shaena-Lyn Kuehu, Punahou; Ashley Medcalf, Christian Academy; Iwalani Rodrigues, Roosevelt; Chelsie Sato, McKinley; and Analee Viena-Lota, Kamehameha.