After waiting patiently for three years, Victor Lee and Colin Yates will get their shot to keep Hawaii Preparatory Academy’s powerhouse basketball train rolling.
Last season, HPA couldn’t pull off a Big Island Interscholastic Federation Division II championship threepeat, but compensated with a much bigger prize.
How good was co-coaches Dave Huntington and Fred Wawner’s physically imposing Ka Makani last season?
They won the Hawaii High School Athletic Association Division II state title without their best player – incomparable guard Kalan Camero, the team’s glue and leading scorer, who was lost in the BIIF semifinals with a concussion.
The 6-foot-1 Camero is redshirting at Menlo College, where fellow HPA graduate Ian Rice is on the Oaks baseball team.
HPA also graduated its two tall foreign students: David Ovbagbedia, a 6-5 forward with a linebacker’s body, and 6-7 Evaldes Vegertas, who rarely missed when he was right next to the rim.
Ovbagbedia, from Nigeria, is playing ball at the University of Rochester in New York, a Division III school, which has an endowment of $2.13 billion. Vegertas is back in his home country of Lithuania playing hoops.
The only returning starter is senior guard Justas Gecas, who received All-BIIF honorable mention last season, along with Vegertas and Kellen Gillens. Camero and Ovbagbedia landed on the first team.
Last season’s part-time players Nicky Palleschi, a 6-4 senior forward, and Hide (pronounced hee-day) Akai, a 6-3 senior guard, round out the new-look Ka Makani lineup.
Last season, the players got up to speed quickly, instead of the usual habit of jelling in January and peaking in time for the BIIF playoffs, a first time at that, Huntington pointed out.
“We’ll look to push the ball, but mainly we want to execute plays with discipline and get good shots,” he said. “We want five players to touch the ball, reverse the ball, go inside and out and have a lot of ball movement.”
Two new foreign students – junior Jonas Skupeika, from Lithuania, and sophomore Dylan Ngango Dikobo, from Nigeria – will provide depth on the bench.
Before the cheerful Ka Makani faithful start printing red-and-white “Two-time state champion” T-shirts, it should be noted that Skupeika and Dikobo have much different skill-sets.
Skupeika, a guard, can knock down a 3-pointer, but he isn’t as tall as Vegertas and doesn’t have the same toolbox of shots. Dikobo is a toothpick next to the muscular Ovbagbedia. Like his fellow countryman, he’s fairly new to hoops, but he plays with high energy just like Gecas.
Gecas ignites Ka Makani in different ways. He can attack the rim, score in transition, and at 6 feet he’s big enough and quick enough to defend on the perimeter and in the post.
“Juice leads by example,” Huntington said. “He’s a guy in the gym every morning. He’s that same, hard-nosed, aggressive type of player.”
Without Camero to deal with this season, opposing teams figure to man press Gecas, and all help-side defenses will be on high alert to move their feet and draw a charging foul on him when he roars to the basket.
That’s where Lee and Yates come in. For three years, they’ve shot numerous jumpers at practice, and ran countless drills, waiting their turn to step on the court and really contribute.
It’s their time to knock down shots and shine, if not Skupeika and Dikobo will be waiting for their turn.
“Colin and Victor know how the program works,” Huntington said. “They both know what we want them to do. It’s a big opportunity for them this year.”
Defensively, HPA shouldn’t have that much of a drop-off in rebounding because Palleschi, who also played football for HPA, is an athletic presence. He’s long and springy, but the key is that his aggressiveness doesn’t lead to early foul trouble.
“He definitely has size at 6-4,” Huntington said. “He can get to the rim and finish (on fast-breaks). We want him to clean up on the offensive glass to allow our other guys to catch and shoot.”
Whether the defending state champs hit a foe with a man defense or 2-3 or 1-2-2 zone, one guy to watch is Akai, who has a nice wingspan and can disrupt entry passes with his lateral movement.
“Hide is long when he’s on top. We can play Jonas at the top spot, too,” Huntington said. “Last year was last year. This is a new group.”
That said, Huntington is teacher at the school, and it’s not exactly duck soup to bring local and foreign parts together, and turn everything into a rolling train.
But that’s the fun part for the HPA coaches.
“The best thing is taking a lot of different players from different places, and having them understand one mission, to play for each other,” Huntington said.