OFF THE BENCH: April Madness

April Madness

This is a play off of March Madness and the NCAA Basketball Tournament.  First of all I’m mad because my brackets got blasted on the first weekend so I was pretty much out of the running for any office pool.

For those of you who predicted the Final Four teams, or a good number of them, don’t start proclaiming fame from atop the mountains because these are all the #1 seeds (for the first time in the current 64-team field format).  As an old saying goes, my mother could have predicted that.

Any way, I sort of did some comparisons to the Final Four Teams and our high school teams that competed this past season (did you check out our Boys and Girls Dream Teams of 2008?).

KANSAS is KALAHEO:  Always a perennial contender for the title, new coach in his 3rd or 4th year replacing a legend (Chico Furtado for the late Pete Smith, and Bill Self replacing Roy Williams), starts with a “K”

MEMPHIS is MILILANI:  1st time in recent years in the Final Four, such as Mililani winning the OIA for the 1st time in a while, veteran coach, starts with “M”.

UCLA is IOLANI:  Always around the top 5 teams in the state, as is UCLA making its 3 consecutive trip to the Final Four, both have history of consecutive championships, both have an “A” in their names.

NORTH CAROLINA is PUNAHOU:  Lots of talent, good depth on the bench, physical big men, coach is an alumnus of the school, good basketball history of success.