Eight is enough.

We're talking state tournaments, specifically the girls basketball event of last week—but in general, all of them.

The Hawaii High School Athletic Association should take a serious look at cutting 12-team tournaments down to eight, at least until the economy improves.

I'm all for as much participation as possible in most cases, but state tournaments are supposed to be about displaying the best high school talent and rewarding teams of true quality—with the caveat of allowing excellent small school teams to compete with others of their size.

First-round mismatches tell us there are not enough quality squads to justify more than eight teams.

Last week's first-round games included a 68-34 rout by Kahuku over Word of Life. The gut reaction is to say Kahuku belongs in Division I, but the Red Raiders fit D-II by enrollment standards, and they were knocked off in last year's D-II tourney.

Also, there are too many teams in the tournament when all of them do not have winning records. Those with losing records don't belong in the postseason.

In these times when the state can't even afford to have students at school five days a week, four-day state tournaments waste money and time—especially when the level of play and competition represents such a drastic drop from the top tier.

» And, by the way, Molokai coach Michael Hooper is right when he says the Division II tournament should be provided equal access to the center stage playing venues. It goes against the philosophy of the HHSAA to give D-II short shrift on the arenas.

» The Rainbows celebrated like they'd just won the World Series when Collin Bennett drove the walk-off single up the middle yesterday at Les Murakami Stadium.

And why not? That was quite a rally, against quite an opponent.

“;We were staring at the precipice of 0-3,”; coach Mike Trapasso said.

Instead, his team battled to its first win of the season—and it came against Oregon State, ranked 10th in the nation.

After the first two games, you didn't get the feeling UH was anywhere near the class of OSU. Yesterday's win changed that completely, because the Rainbows battled all the way through. Even if UH had ended up losing it in extra innings, Hawaii proved it could compete with Oregon State.

Oregon State has an endless supply of live arms and a lineup that is tough from top to bottom. UH goes into the final game of their series today with the confidence that it belongs on the field with the best in the country—or at least it looked like it yesterday.

» If I had a son or daughter who played basketball, I'd be happy if Bob Nash were his or her coach. He is a man of integrity, intelligence, experience, humor and humility who played at the highest level ... and given the right situation and pupils who will listen, he's an excellent teacher. Others hold him in similar regard.

But none of that means Nash is assured of keeping his job as UH's head coach. This will be his third losing season in three tries. Usually that means it's time to part ways.

His team's effort remains inconsistent; it is painful to watch for reasons we've pointed out several times. Those who want to blame only the players must remember the coaches brought them in.

Reach Star-Bulletin sports columnist Dave Reardon at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), his “;Quick Reads”; blog at starbulletin.com, and twitter.com/davereardon.