Greg Yamamoto | SL

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Sat, Feb 23, 2013 @ Blaisdell

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Kalaheo

60

Maryknoll

54

F/OT	1	2	3	4	OT
Kalaheo (14-0, 28-4)	16	8	15	12	9	60
Maryknoll (11-1, 25-3)	3	18	13	17	3	54

• Points
• Rebounds
• Assists

K. Gilmore 15 pts  1 3pm  8/10 FTs

J. Ko 24 pts  2 3pm  8/10 FTs

T. Schramm 9 tot

D. Morgan 4 tot

T. Schramm 2 ast

J. Ko 2 ast

The Kalaheo Mustangs won a lot of games during the 2012-'13 boys basketball season — nearly 30 of them in fact. But, as it is with most championship teams, it was ultimately the four defeats they were dealt that proved to be most beneficial in the end.

Interestingly enough, half of those losses came within 24-hour span on the first two days of the Merv Lopes Holiday Classic at Manoa Gym.

Kalaheo was blown out by Foothill (Henderson, Nevada) by a score of 67-37 on Dec. 27, 2012 and the very next day lost on a buzzer-beater to Punahou, 51-49.

Then-Mustangs coach Alika Smith recalled his team's situation going into its final tune-up before the OIA East regular season got underway the following week.

"That Foothill game was the first game we played without Josh," Smith said of senior guard Josh Ko, who went on to be selected as Player of the Year for the state of Hawaii by Gatorade that season.

"He had vertigo and he's a huge part of the team — distributing and scoring — and we had some other kids that had to step in and it was against a formidable opponent," Smith added of Foothill, which went on to win the 16-team Merv Lopes Classic.

The Falcons, who eventually finished with a 22-6 record in Nevada that season, were tied with the Mustangs at 11 apiece after the first quarter. However, they took a 30-16 lead at halftime and outscored Kalaheo, 37 to 21, in the second half.

"They were very good, well-coached, they could shoot the ball and so it got ugly maybe mid-third quarter," Smith said. "But, you know, you're teaching and coaching and not only for that game, but you're teaching and coaching for the future: the rest of the preseason, the regular season and the playoffs. So the guys that stepped in and didn't perform as good as they thought they should have, or it just didn't materialize for them, but they learned from it. It was a great learning experience and we try and get those throughout the season as much as we can."

Smith said one of his team's two prior losses that preseason — a narrow 76-73 defeat in the first round of the Iolani Classic to Houston area-powerhouse Yates — also provided a learning opportunity for his squad.

"We had them down 17 (points) in the second half," Smith said of Yates, which went 35-5 the year prior. "We were playing well, we just didn't hit some shots. They put a lot of pressure on us and Josh started cramping up, so we had to count on others, but they did well. Any other opponent, I think we could have been alright."

The game against the Buffanblu one day after the Foothill loss played out much more similarly to that Yates' contest than the lopsided defeat Kalaheo took against the Falcons. The Mustangs lost on a buzzer-beating shot by Punahou's Nick Velasquez that Smith remembered vividly.

"All we needed was one rebound and I think it was Velasquez who got it up and in," said Smith, who noted that senior Shem Sukumaran was responsible for Velasquez on the play.

"Shem was guarding and he didn't box out; we watched the video," Smith added.

There was a reason that Smith was able to recall the exact situation so vividly.

Fast forward two months to the Division I state championship final:

"It comes to fruition when we're playing Maryknoll. Josh hit a 3 and Shem was guarding (Maryknoll star) Josh Burnett and their point guard fires a 3 with four or five seconds left and Shem actually boxes out and Burnett goes over his back and we got two free throws to win the state championship," Smith stated. "He missed them both, but that didn't matter, it was all because he boxed out and that was from him learning from his mistakes and what we point out as a staff and just try and make them learn from those mistakes as best as possible."

Rewind to December and the loss to two-point loss to the Buffanblu represented the last time the Mustangs would taste defeat that season.

Kalaheo went on to win its final 18 games, including a perfect 17-0 record in the regular and post-seasons, to capture both the OIA and HHSAA Division I titles.

It was the second state championship in as many years for the program, which was coming off winning league and state crowns in D2 the season prior.

But with a promotion to D1 for the 2012-'13 season and a returning roster that included 11 seniors, then-Mustangs coach Alika Smith knew that in order to get the most out of his veteran group, he needed to get the most out of the preseason that he could.

"They loved the fact of winning the D2, but in the beginning of that (2011-'12) season we were trying to move up to D1 but that wasn't happening — it was a formula thing — but they knew they could compete with the D1 teams. In fact, I think that year we won D2, three of the top four teams in the (OIA) East were D2," Smith explained.

He went on, "Going into that (2012-'13) season they had high expectations for themselves and it showed in their work ethic. For the majority of those kids it was their third year in my system, so they knew it like the back of their hand and it was a huge advantage. One thing we did was we would schedule a lot of games. We would play 40-some-odd games. We'd play at other people's gyms and put (our players) in really uncomfortable games, where when it does count it's not foreign to them."

Early in the preseason, Smith took the Mustangs to Hilo for a tournament hosted by Waiakea, in addition to a couple of single games.

"We played like five games. We played four straight nights, I remember. We went there on a Sunday and played, played, played," Smith said.

But it wasn't just the on-the-court work that his players benefitted from on the trip.

"One thing that I'm a firm believer of is team bonding," Smith proclaimed. "We went to Vegas that summer with that same group and during the season we have maybe six or seven gym sleepovers where we'd sleep in the gym."

Among the team-bonding activities the group enjoyed were long-drive contests, bowling, trivia contests, movie nights and team barbecues.

"We did all kinds of stuff that brought them together and it shows on the court as well," Smith said.

Although the Mustangs were senior-heavy that year, one underclassman managed to crack the starting lineup in Kupaa Harrison, one of two sophomores on the team.

"One reason that also happened is Kainoa Frank went down with a season-ending injury in football, so we didn't have another big," Smith said of Frank, who had 13 points, 10 rebounds, three blocks and two steals in the 2012 D2 state championship game.

"We were focused at that point in the preseason. We had played good teams, we had traveled, but this is where it really counted and what they did very well was they honed in. We had to sharpen things up, we had to find a formula of which guys we could use in which spots, how good do we look with this person, so we were trying to get the camaraderie going, get gelling together when Josh wasn't there, but as a staff we like to focus on what we need to do, how do we get better instead of the opponent and we found that focusing on ourselves tended to be a little easier," Smith added.

Kalaheo's closest contests the rest of the way came against Moanalua. The Mustangs held off Na Menehune in the regular-season meeting, 41-40, and escaped with a 56-52 overtime victory when the teams squared off in the OIA championship game.

Entering the state tournament, Kalaheo was seeded second behind Interscholastic League of Honolulu champion Maryknoll.

After a first-round bye, the Mustangs made easy work of Mililani in the quarterfinals, 56-32, to set-up a semifinal match-up against ILH runner-up Punahou.

The Buffanblu held a slim 24-23 lead at halftime and the teams ended regulation tied at 41, however, Kalaheo opened the overtime period with a 9-1 run and eventually held on for a 55-48 win behind a game-high 18 points from Derick Morgan.

The Mustangs were pushed to overtime again the following night by Maryknoll in the championship game. Led by Ko's 24 points, they fended off the Spartans for the 60-54 win; he was named the tournament's Most Outstanding Player and was joined by Morgan on the All-Tournament Team.

Smith said that it took a total team effort to get it done.

"First off, those kids were such good kids, all of them and one thing about it is all of them were unselfish and they wanted success for everybody else. Those guys were the true meaning of ‘team' when you look at it in my eyes," he said.

The competitiveness of the collective group made for some very intense and productive practice sessions, especially after the consecutive losses in the preseason.

"As a coach you want to win every game, but at the same time during those losses, at those times it was very humbling and we had to get back to work, but it kind of materialized itself because the players felt like they couldn't let it happen again and they brought the intensity to practice," Smith explained. "Some of our practices were way better than any games that year as far as competitiveness; there were some battles, whether it was the second or third teams, but that's how prideful they took it."

That pride was evident in the lead-up to the championship game, Smith reminisced.

"We were about to play Maryknoll and we were doing a walk-through so we met an hour before the bus leaves and we're going through personnel and my two best defenders were fighting over who would guard (Maryknoll star) Kaleb Gilmore. They both wanted to guard him, but those are the types of individuals they were. They wanted to take that challenge and they wanted defense to be an integral part of us winning that game," he said.

With its win over the Spartans, Kalaheo became the first school in state tournament history to win a D1 championship the year after claiming the D2 crown.

"It was gratifying and I was just so happy to see the kids celebrate," Smith said. "Some of them only came in to foul toward the end when we were playing the foul game in regulation, but they were happier than anything just getting in for five or six seconds.

"We talked about how ‘when you're called upon to do your job, if you do your job then we'll be fine.' They knew what they wanted, they put in the work that was needed to achieve those goals and it paid off. We were the first team to go D2 to D1 and even though they didn't think of that as an accomplishment because they felt we should have been playing D1 the previous year, it is what it is and we will always have that and those memories that we can treasure forever," Smith added.

Despite being named Gatorade State Player of the Year and First Team All-State by USA Today, Ko was not selected by OIA East coaches as league Player of the Year. Instead, that distinction went to Moanalua's Kahanu Puulei-Auld. Ko, who transferred from Punahou early in his high school career, was a First Team All-OIA East pick, along with teammate Kalei Zuttermeister; Morgan was a Second Team selection.

"He was a hard worker and his IQ was very, very good," Smith said of Ko, a 6-foot-1 guard. "You didn't see him taking too many bad shots. He was a leader for us, but not so much a vocal one as much as he led by example and that was key for us. I'm just so proud of him on how it ended because he was right in the mix on how it ended and deservingly so."

Upon graduating from Kalaheo that spring, Ko walked on at the University of Pittsburgh, where he played in 15 games over two seasons. He played his final two seasons at Florida Gulf Coast University and completed his collegiate eligibility in 2018.

The Mustangs returned to the D1 state tournament in 2014, but lost to Lahainaluna in the opening round and went on to finish eighth after a win over Leilehua and a loss to Waiakea in the consolation bracket.

However, Kalaheo returned to the top of the proverbial mountain a year later, when it finished third in the OIA only to reel off four wins in four days at states to claim its third state championship in four seasons. The Mustangs were led that year by Harrison, then a senior, and Gilmore, who transferred from Maryknoll before the season. Gilmore was named All-Hawaii Player of the Year, while Harrison was a fellow First Team selection.

It was the program's sixth overall state championship and third crown under Alika Smith, who matched the three state titles won by his late father, Pete, at Kalaheo in 1985, 1995 and 2001.

Alika Smith, the state Player of the Year in 1994, stepped down from his post at his alma mater following the 2015 season. He returned to coaching high school basketball for the 2019-'20 season, when he led the Waiakea girls to a runner-up finish in the Big Island Interscholastic Federation, an appearance in the semifinal round of the D1 state tournament and a 17-4 overall record,