Two teams sit atop the (very early) Interscholastic League of Honolulu boys basketball standings after week one.

One team might not come as a surprise: Punahou. But the other? Well, I for one, wasn't expecting Saint Louis to be 2-0 after opening the regular season against Maryknoll, and especially reigning Division I state champion Iolani.

Shows what I know.

The Crusaders fought, scratched and clawed their way to a 44-42 win over the Spartans last Wednesday and a 35-31 win over the Raiders Saturday.

So how, you ask, did they do it?

"We about it as a team, that we want to be balanced," Saint Louis coach Keith Spencer when reached by phone Sunday. "We don't want one guy with 25 (points). We want maybe eight here, 10 here and 12 there, then we become better as a team and that makes us harder to defend."

Spencer has the benefit of a trio of fourth-year varsity guards in seniors Jimmy Nunuha (10.7 points per game), Ihaka Johnson (8.5 ppg) and Kevin Marks (7.4 ppg).

When asked if his team a year or two ago wins those close games against Maryknoll and Iolani, he was candid.

"I'll say no, because we weren't a balanced team like how we are this year," Spencer said, who noted the contributions of forwards Chris Sykes, Jayce Smalley, Drew Kobayashi and Lance Sataraka. "Our bigs are contributing big time right now for us. The last two years we had good guard play, but we'd lose the battle in the paint and you've got to be physical in the paint and you've got to get some rebounds. In the past we weren't very productive with our bigs, but this year we are."

The progress of Saint Louis' posts were evident against Iolani, when they out rebounded the bigger Raiders, 21 to 13.

"I talked to our bigs and we talked about being active on the boards and putting a body on (6-foot-8 Iolani center) Hugh (Hogland),"Spencer said. "We were trying to beat him to every spot for every rebound and if we could do that we could be in the game, but we had to stop Hugh."

Despite the play of the seasoned veterans at the guard positions and the continued development of the aforementioned quartet of underclassmen at the forward spots, Spencer pointed at another reason for the Crusaders' early success.

"The bottom line is we stress playing team defense and the kids have really bought into that," Spencer said. "That's what is keeping us in these big games. We're playing really good team defense right now."

Saint Louis will look to continue its hot ways Wednesday when it hosts second-ranked Punahou at 6:30 p.m.