UH volleyball struggles to beef up schedule

By Ann Miller
Advertiser Staff Writer

•	Rainbow Wahine volleyball WHO: Third-ranked Hawai'i (6-0) vs. Cal Poly (1-5) WHEN: 7 p.m. today and tomorrow WHERE: Stan Sheriff Center SERIES: Hawai'i 24, Cal Poly 3 TV/Radio: Live on KFVE (5) and KKEA (1420 AM) TICKETS: Lower bowl (single seats only)i$13. Upper bowli$10 (adults), $8 (seniors), $6 (students). Parking is $3

Too many ranked teams on your 2002 preseason plate? Be careful your players aren't so punch drunk they collapse in their conference.

Too few tough teams early? Win or lose, your power rating will suffer unless a few of those opponents bring it on during the season.

Conference too tough? You could be one injury from a lengthy losing streak, or your players could lose so much confidence the season spirals into a submission.

Conference too weak? How can you possibly be prepared for the playoffs after seven weeks of uno, dos, adios?

"In coaching, the two keys are recruiting and scheduling," says Mary Wise, coach of sixth-ranked Florida. "Scheduling is every bit as difficult and time consuming as recruiting. The difference is, you're dealing with the egos of coaches, not 18-year-olds. You can schedule yourself right out of the NCAA Tournament."

There are no lucrative TV deals in volleyball. The NCAA Committee does not see lots of teams.

It could care less that third-ranked Hawai'i, which plays Cal Poly tonight and tomorrow, could lose $100,000 in gate receipts if these matches were played in San Luis Obispo instead of Honolulu. The fact that the Rainbow Wahine routinely travel 30,000 miles a season, and have no interest in going away more than they must, is also not a committee concern.

Power rankings are about all the committee can go on at the end of November. Those rankings, or ratings percentage index (RPI), are based on what teams you play, what teams they play, where all that playing goes on and who wins. RPI and scheduling are inseparable.

UH coach Dave Shoji, Wise and Bobbi Petersen, coach of seventh-ranked Northern Iowa, are three who cannot depend on their conference to pump up their RPI. Hawai'i's Western Athletic Conference was rated 11th in the country by one volleyball Web site last season, one up on Petersen's Missouri Valley and two back of Wise's Southeastern.

During a recent season, Florida lost just one SEC game, then was shocked into reality when it was pushed to five games in an NCAA first-round match. Still, Wise prefers that to the alternative of "learning to lose" that Pac-10 and Big-Ten teams face by playing ranked teams so often.

Shoji agrees: "Your national ranking suffers, you get a lower seed in the tournament. It's a very volatile situation when every night is tough. On the other hand, you're challenged and the team becomes very tough mentally. It's forced to play in tough places."

To balance the SEC, Wise has Illinois, Southern California (No. 2), Stanford (1) and Penn State (11) on her four preseason weekends. Northern Iowa comes for Thanksgiving. Scheduling has become such an "art," she says, coaches are doing it years in advance. Florida is already "penciled in" to play here in 2005. Shoji says Hawai'i's preseason is "booked through 2004."

Getting teams here is not as tough as the isolation might make it seem. Playing in Hawai'i can be a deal-maker during recruiting. The location is idyllic and the atmosphere unlike any volleyball venue on the Mainland, with crowds so much larger that the program actually makes six-digit profits for UH, which is always ranked. But Shoji still struggles to find the right combinations.

"If we schedule two or three ranked teams, then other teams don't want to come in because they'll have to play Hawai'i and UCLA or a Stanford," he says. "They're looking out for themselves, too. They all want to get a win so they're looking for a team they can possibly beat."

Shoji wishes he invited Northern Iowa this year. His scheduling strategy is to try and get one "name" team each of his four preseason weekends, which he was not able to do this season. "We could probably have used a bigger name the third and fourth weekend," he said.

Shoji also says he is "selective" in his choice of opponents, trying to choose "competitive" teams but also dealing with coaches he knows. He also likes to bring in "one, two or three" good teams in October or November. This year, that's Notre Dame (Oct. 21-22) and Stanford (Nov. 10). As conference commitments increase, that time is becoming more difficult to fill.

Finally, Shoji likes to play one or two non-conference matches against "challenging" teams on the Mainland. Hawai'i is at BYU and Utah after the WAC Tournament this November. Next year, the Rainbow Wahine will play at LSU as a way of taking "Bayou Basher" Kim Willoughby home.

His needs change with his team. He believes last year's appearance at the NACWAA tournament would have been a much better fit for this year's team. And next year's NACWAA appearance (here Aug. 22-23) will help the 2003 team "hit the ground running."

There is little Hawai'i can do about the WAC, except hope it morphs into something like the Big 12. Shoji sees that as an ideal conference, with three ranked teams and plenty of opportunities for fine-tuning. He wouldn't fear pushing his team in practice, but scrimmages wouldn't always have to be harder than conference games.

When you play in the 11th-ranked conference in the country, it can be hard to tell if you are improving. That's why the Rainbows now put this reminder at the bottom of each player's scouting report: "One day, there will be no tomorrow."

QUICK SETS: Maja Gustin, an all-conference player at different positions her first two seasons, is out "indefinitely" with a stress fracture in her left foot. Gustin missed the last three matches, after seeing action in seven games the first three matches. Team physician Dr. Andrew Nichols said he would continue to evaluate Gustin and "hope that she can return to the court soon."