There are two ways to look at the No. 12 seeding the NCAA Women's Volleyball Committee handed third-ranked Hawai'i yesterday, shipping the 28-2 Rainbow Wahine to Southern California's subregional a second straight year. Both are baffling.

One, why bother playing a tough preseason? Clearly, sweeps of the Pac-10's top two teams (fourth-seeded Stanford and eighth-seeded UCLA) had a whole lot more impact on the coaches — who vote on the Top 25 — than the committee.

"Besides getting the team tough," UH coach Dave Shoji said, "it doesn't matter who we play anymore."

Or two, the Rainbows' romp through the Western Athletic Conference must have hurt more than it helped. Imagine if they had actually lost a match the past three months.

The bright side in all of this might be more literal than anything else. Instead of the Tundra Tour the 'Bows have come to expect — trips to Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Colorado the past five years — they might see the sun this December.

Hawai'i puts its 24-match win streak on the line Friday against New Mexico (20-9) in Los Angeles, at USC's Galen Center. The Lobos are making their first NCAA appearance in 15 years. They were an at-large selection from the Mountain West, won by Colorado State.

New Mexico State, the WAC runner-up, beat 23rd-ranked CSU Saturday, but was not included in the 64-team NCAA field.

The Trojans (21-9) take on Oklahoma (18-11) in Friday's other match. Tentative times are 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. HST. Winners play Saturday (4 p.m. HST), with the subregional champ advancing to the Stanford regional the following Friday and Saturday.

Last year, UH swept Belmont and USC at Galen. It lost to Stanford in the Colorado State regional final.

It was tough to tell if the deja vu scenario disappointed the Rainbow Wahine or made them mad as hell. They also sounded amused and, as senior Stephanie Brandt put it, "confused" at such a low seeding.

"It's a letdown," Brandt said. "We felt like we worked really hard all year. What more can you do? If we'd won two more would we have even been top eight?

"We bust our butts to go 28-2 and we're undefeated in the WAC. What more can we do?"

The seedings closely follow the NCAA's last (Nov. 23) RPI, or power ranking. Two-time defending NCAA champion Penn State, on an NCAA-record 96-match winning streak, is the No. 1 seed and No. 2 in the RPI. Texas is No. 2 and first in the RPI. Florida State, ranked 15th by the coaches, is third in both. Stanford is the fourth seed with a No. 6 RPI.

Hawai'i's RPI was 22, with its losses to Texas and Cal (No. 8 in the RPI). Florida State's losses came against Florida (No. 16 RPI) and Georgia Tech (50). The Seminoles also swept Illinois, which is seeded fifth in the Rainbows' regional and has a No. 4 RPI.

It made no sense to Shoji.

"Ridiculous," he said, before laughing. "I just don't understand how Florida State's RPI is way higher and its seeding is way higher. I think we've done all we could. We scheduled tough, we have wins against some good teams — the Pac-10 champs (Stanford) and runner-up (UCLA). I don't see where the RPI is valid. It's not even so much Florida State. It's the whole thing. Why is our seeding so low?"

It will keep the Rainbow Wahine humble. If Shoji has his way, it will also inspire them beyond what transpired the past two seasons.

Both ended with bad losses, to Stanford in last year's regional final, and Middle Tennessee in the second round. That was the only time in 11 years UH did not reach regionals.

"It was a surprise, kinda disappointing," UH senior Jayme Lee said of the seeding, "but I think this team is resilient and used to traveling. We can't be really surprised with anything. We knew we'd have to travel. It's just another road to go down. We're fine."

And fired up.

"We want to be in the final four again," Brandt said. "We want to be the best we can be, end on a good note, and prove to the whole nation we are not over-rated."

That is all Shoji wanted to hear.

"Maybe this will get people upset and they will play with some purpose," he said. "We've got some things to prove to people. We should be very motivated.

"We have five seniors. Hopefully, they will be the ones that make us tougher mentally than the other teams. We're a pretty veteran team."

NOTES

A hypothetical look at Hawai'i's road to a fifth national title might go something like this: If UH beats New Mexico Friday, it could face 16th-ranked and host USC Saturday. The third-round opponent could be fifth-seeded Illinois, followed by a regional final against fourth-seeded and host Stanford. If Hawai'i survives all that, it would get unbeaten Penn State in a national semifinal. Then the championship match.


This is the fourth straight year USC has hosted a subregional. Hawai'i, making its 28th NCAA appearance and 17th straight, has been seeded (top 16) the past six years and sent away each year.

There are 14 teams with RPIs below 64 that qualified as conference champions. The Summit League got one more team invited than the WAC, when Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne (128 RPI) upset North Dakota State (45) to take the automatic berth.

Florida State's No. 3 seed looks especially good against its subregional opponents — Alabama A&M (RPI 229), Florida A&M (138) and Jacksonville State (82). In contrast, Hawai'i's opponents have RPIs of 25 (USC), 41 (New Mexico) and 48 (Oklahoma).

The other seeded teams sent away for subregionals are Washington (6), Cal (9), Minnesota (11) and Oregon (14).