The Warriors finished second in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation's regular season, but lost to UCLA in the quarterfinals of the league tournament. Their season officially ended Sunday when they were not invited to the NCAA Championships.

UCLA won the MPSF tournament and the league's automatic berth in the NCAA final four. Regular-season champion UC Irvine, which lost in the tournament semifinals, received the lone at-large berth. UH's only reasonable chance of continuing its season evaporated when Irvine failed to win the MPSF tournament.

Of this week's poll, which is selected by 16 head coaches, UH coach Mike Wilton said: "I find it curious."

The Warriors had finished the regular season with four more victories than third-place Pepperdine and five more than fourth-place Long Beach State. But after losing to UCLA in the quarterfinals, the Warriors fell to No. 4 last week behind UC Irvine, Long Beach State and Pepperdine.

"Irvine loses (its only playoff match) and nothing happens (to the Anteaters in the rankings), and our loss drops us two places?" Wilton said. "That doesn't make sense because we had the tie-breaker deals with Irvine and Pepperdine, and we swept Long Beach."