To those who witnessed last week's Hawaiian Airlines/Hawai'i High School Athletic Association Girls Basketball Championships, one long-speculated theory now seems beyond reproof: In girls basketball, as in geology, the Big Island is the state's hot spot of volcanic activity.

Consider: Big Island Interscholastic Federation champion and tournament No. 2 seed Konawaena rolled past Kalani, 'Iolani and Punahou to capture the Division I championship. Meanwhile, BIIF rival Honoka'a took third place on a miraculous game-winning shot against 'Iolani by tournament Most Outstanding Player Keisha Kanekoa, and Kamehameha-Hawai'i thrashed a talented Sacred Hearts squad, 57-30, to win the Division II championship.

The rumble and the roar were hard to ignore on the final night as players and fans from each of the BIIF teams joined together to drown out the hometown competition with rising chants of "F.B.I., F.B.I. ..."

And that unifying notion — pride in being "from Big Island" — spoke volumes (in high volume) about a basketball hotbed that had seemingly come of age.

Yet, what some read as a sudden seismic shift was in fact no overnight phenomenon. Konawaena had made it to the Division I final four each of the previous three years, winning it all in 2004 and falling to Punahou in double-overtime in the championship game two years ago. Honoka'a has finished third the last three years, and came in second to Punahou in 1997. Kamehameha-Hawai'i won the Division II title in 2005 and came in second last year.

Also, Waiakea won Division I championships in 1985 and 1986 and reached the semifinals in 1993, 1998 and 1999.

According to coaches, players and fans, the success of BIIF programs can be attributed to a host of factors, from youth-basketball training programs to the close-knit communities that support them, from coaches who see their work as an obligation to tradition to talented players eager to show everyone what it means to be "from Big Island."

"I don't know what we're doing, but our girls make a commitment to doing it on the court and in the classroom," says Konawaena head coach Bobbie Awa. "There's not a lot going on in Kona, so our girls practice against each other and against the boys. There's just great basketball on the island."

THE FEEDER SYSTEM

Awa played for Konawaena from 1982 to 1985 and has spent the last seven years as head coach of the program. She also serves as an assistant for the boys team, run by her husband Donald (who, in turn, is an assistant for the girls team). The Awas also head the Kona Stingrays, the community's only youth-basketball program, which serves as a feeder for the high school team.

"It has to do with chemistry," says Donald Awa. "These girls come up on the same team from little-kid time. By the time they get to high school, we just add a few things. They don't have to learn anything new.

"Talent-wise and athletically, we cannot match up with Punahou and the big schools, but we feel comfortable playing together and we keep our girls."

That continuity serves as a natural filter. Those who don't buy in to the system drop out early, leaving a cohesive and solidly coached core to move on.

"We're from South Kona," says Bobbie Awa. "It's really small, everybody gets along and the community is real tight. Kids see the program doing well and they want to play basketball, too."

Family ties certainly don't hurt. The first Stingrays team consisted almost entirely of the Awas' nieces and nephews.

"That family eats, breathes and sleeps basketball," says Candy Berdon, a hanai aunty of Konawaena standout Liana Hanato-Smith. "They play as a team because the team goes back generations."

For Konawaena fan JoAnn Perry, the program and its athletes are South Kona personified.

"As a senior citizen, where can you go on a Friday or Saturday night and find wholesome entertainment for $2?" Perry said. "These girls are good role models. I'm 60, and they're my role models."

VALUES NOT RECOGNITION

Blame an O'ahu-centric media, blame powerhouses like Punahou, blame the Big Island teams' own inability to pound their chests and shout their own names. To some casual basketball fans, the performance of the Big Island teams this year was a complete surprise.

"Beginning of the season, our coach said we'd be No. 1 in Division II," says Kamehameha-Hawai'i point guard Ashlee Kalauli, whose fiery play helped set the tone for her team during the tournament. "We just wanted to come and make a statement that we can compete all over the islands."

It was a sentiment echoed by many Big Island players and coaches last week, just not by Kalauli's coach Kalani Silva.

"We might use that as lockerroom motivation," Silva says. "But what guides us most of all is what we call 'ha'aha'a' (humility). That's how we want to reflect our school and our community. I think all of the Big Island teams share this. You'll see an air of confidence, but not of arrogance."

Silva, who was born in Hilo, led a team made up of players he helped develop as a junior varsity coach (along with current assistant Dominic Pacheco) and coach of the Hawai'i Warriors youth program.

For Silva, who draws players from around the Big Island, basketball provides a good medium for the transmission of Hawaiian cultural values.

"We do what we do for our Hawaiian people," he says. "We succeed because people have helped us and mentored us, and we have to continue the cycle by doing that for the players and coaches coming up."

YOU CAN'T TEACH THAT

On the last day of the tournament, scores of Konawaena and Kamehameha-Hawai'i fans clad in school-colored shirts and waving signs emblazoned with "Kona Girls Rock" and "You Can't Teach This at a Private School!" cheered on Honoka'a in their consolation game.

Several Kamehameha-Hawai'i players come from Honoka'a, and, despite a hot rivalry, many Konawaena players have close relationships with Honoka'a's team.

It's a Big Island thing, says Daphne Honma, the architect of Honoka'a's success from 1988 to 2006. She says it's difficult to overestimate the importance of basketball to many Big Island communities.

"A lot has to do with our community being so small," she said. "With the plantation closing down, the support has gotten stronger. Our community needed something to believe in. We just came in at the right time."

First-year head coach Shawna Lau Kong, born and raised in Honoka'a, said the team (with players drawn from Honoka'a, Waimea and Pa'auilo) reflects the spirit of their community.

"We're just a small, little town," she said. "We just got a four-way stop sign and that was a pretty big thing. But we're fun, and we're friendly people, and that's why people cheer for us. We're just like them."

But not every small basketball town can lay claim to a player like Kanekoa, a University of Hawai'i recruit whose scoring and playmaking abilities vaulted the Dragons past No. 1 seed Roosevelt in the quarterfinals.

"In the beginning of the season, all of the O'ahu schools get the recognition," Kanekoa said. "But when we come here, we know we can compete and win."

On the final play of her high school career, with three seconds left and her team down a point to 'Iolani, Kanekoa took a pass from Kawehi Correa, dribbled left from from the top of the key, elevated over two defenders and converted an off-balance, sideways shot off the glass for the win.

In that moment, the names on the front of the green, yellow and blue T-shirts sported by so many Big Island fans who made the trip to Honolulu scarcely seemed to matter. They erupted as one, chanting, as always, "F.B.I., F.B.I. ..."

From Big Island.

For Big island.

Forever Big Island.

Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.