Getting to and from the Stan Sheriff Center might take you longer than watching many of the University of Hawai'i's Rainbow Wahine volleyball matches in the arena this year.

And not because the traffic is expected to get a whole lot worse in the quarry, either. It isn't.

Rather, the people who make the rules have concluded that women's volleyball matches simply lag too much. They believe televised matches take too long. They apparently surmise that even the players let down a little in the middle of games.

Their solution to all of the above: reduce the number of points required to win a game from 30 points to 25.

Of course, this is brought to you by the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel. Talk about something in need of shortening.

The new rules — which don't apply to the men — are being employed in the spring and will be there when play opens in the fall, too.

In UH's case, the cutback might be well and good if the Rainbow Wahine were playing a bushel of labored five-game (now called "set" by another recent NCAA fiat) matches. But they went five just five times in 33 matches last season.

Much more common are the three-set matches, which have become a staple of Rainbow Wahine schedules, accounting for 64 of matches last year. They are especially prevalent in the Western Athletic Conference, where the Rainbow Wahine's domination has been striking for a decade. So much so that former UH assistant Charlie Wade used to call 'em uno-dos-adios! affairs.

Last year 15 of the Rainbow Wahine's 19 matches against conference teams were, indeed, 1-2-3 and over. Amazingly — and this one has to still have you shaking your head — a loss to Utah State in Manoa, too.

Those three-and-out WAC matches averaged 1 hour, 34 minutes. Take away 15 points and all that surround them and you're hardly settled into your seat when the folks who run the arena are reminding you to drive safely on the way home.

"It would be like football taking five minutes off each quarter," suggests UH coach Dave Shoji.

Those kinds of matches, especially with gas at $4 a gallon — or higher — are going to give people pause to consider whether they should stay home for all but the marquee opponents.

Washington coach Jim McLaughlin said Husky fans, like those at UH, do a lot of commuting to get to the matches and pay significant ticket prices when they get there to see them. Playing shorter matches isn't the best way to keep them to keep coming back.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.