AUSTIN, Texas — When Texas State lost six of its first seven matches and closed the regular season with a resounding four-match skid, taking the 25-mile drive to Gregory Gym to play Hawai'i in the first round of the NCAA Tournament tomorrow was not even a blip on the volleyball radar.

But tomorrow, 26th-year coach Karen Chisum hopes to have her Bobcats convinced the seventh-ranked Rainbow Wahine "put their shoes on the same way we do — they may put on flip flops and ours are tennis shoes, but we're basically the same."

Texas State finished with a Southland Conference flourish, erasing a fourth-place finish by sweeping the conference tournament nearly two weeks ago. Even Chisum didn't see it coming after an immensely frustrating 14-14 regular season.

When her players heard their NCAA fate Sunday, it was the next-best thing to being there — in Hawai'i, that is.

"When the television show came across 'Hawai'i-Texas State' my kids went, 'Oh, my gosh,' " Chisum recalled. "Then they said 'in Austin' and they all went, 'Oh, no.' "

Their disappointment at being denied a ticket to paradise is surpassed only by the Rainbows'. Tomorrow, that will be forgotten as the Bobcats play in their second consecutive NCAA Tournament, and the 'Bows' their 24th of 25.

Chisum still has warm memories of the ovation her team (then called Southwest Texas State) received from Klum Gym fans after its 1991 postseason appearance. This is the Bobcats' fifth NCAA Tournament, and they have yet to win.

That isn't what worries Chisum most. That would be Hawai'i's Dave Shoji, one of the few active coaches with a better winning percentage than hers. She calls the Rainbow Wahine a "traditional powerhouse" with a top 10 aura and the talent to back it up.

Still, she and her players are ecstatic to be heading to Austin, even if they don't expect to be there long. "It worked out great," Chisum said. "Our football team qualified for 1-AA playoffs this weekend so the fans can drive back and watch football Saturday afternoon."

Two teams will still be playing here that night, with tomorrow's winner of the early match taking on the survivor of the Texas-LSU match that follows. The Longhorns, who share the No. 7 ranking in the Coaches Poll this week with Hawai'i, were not seeded for the NCAA Tournament. Saturday's subregional champion moves on to Penn State for next week's regional.

BOBCATS CONFIDENT

The Bobcats are taking it one paw step at a time. Their offense features senior Lizzy Nwoke, the SLC Tournament MVP, and freshman Lawrencia Brown. Brandy St. Francis also earned a place on the Southland all-conference team. None of the three were on the six-player first team.

"Lizzy came in seventh in the voting, but I can tell you exactly how that happened," Chisum said with no hint of disappointment. "This team peaked at the right time. We saw shades of good things all season long, but we shot ourselves in the foot too many times.

"We're a good team, we just made too many errors. We should have been like 24-8, but we did it to ourselves. We're young, we only have two seniors. We've been very inconsistent all season. But now I've never been so proud of a group of kids. I knew we had it in us. The weekend of the conference tournament the group jelled and did exactly what we thought we'd see earlier in the season."

Texas State was swept by Cal and Texas, the only ranked teams it played this year. A year ago, Chisum described her team as "shell-shocked" while it was being beat up by the Longhorns in the NCAA's first round. She does not expect that to happen again.

"Before our tournament we were tentative," Chisum said. "Now we are much more aggressive. We are a confident team. ... We struggled with senior leadership, but our two seniors raised their level about three notches in the conference tournament. I was extremely proud. They started playing well and the team followed."

Chisum plans to drive over to Austin around noon today, have a nice dinner and spend the night so her team can live the postseason "experience." The 'Bows left Hawai'i Tuesday and arrived in Austin yesterday morning, 4,000 miles later.

FACING BIG CHALLENGES

The last time the Rainbow Wahine were here it was for the 1983 regional. A week later, after the team passed the flu around, they rolled to their second consecutive NCAA championship, in Lexington, Kent., with one starter out and Shoji sick as a dog.

They are relatively healthy now, haven't lost in more than two months and are seeded seventh in the tournament. Shoji believes this team is "better at every position" than last year and has no fear of looking past Texas State at this point in the season. His team knows better.

"We're a veteran, veteran ballclub," Shoji said. "We've got a couple youngsters, but for the most part we've been through everything you can go through. Our biggest strength is that we've been there and hopefully we'll respond in a positive way."

Texas State has been here before as well. It didn't go all that well and Chisum believes this year will be better. She's just not sure if it will be the Bobcats' breakout week.

"The trouble is ... I'd love to be playing somebody not in the top 10," Chisum admits. "That's pretty damn tough. I'd love to be playing somebody in the top 25 or 30, but that's not the case. We've got to beat the big dogs with our conference and that's a huge challenge. Hopefully, it's not impossible."

NOTES

KFVE and Sports Radio (1420 AM) will broadcast Hawai'i matches live. Tomorrow's first-round match begins at 1 p.m. HST. Saturday's subregional final starts at 2:30 p.m. HST.

UH junior Kanoe Kamana'o, who became the program's all-time assist leader last week, is now seventh in Western Athletic Conference career assists, with 4,742. She is 1,131 behind No. 1 Analisa Saylor of Colorado State (5,873 from 1994-97). The NCAA record is 6,650, by Tammy Roberson of Alabama-Birmingham (1989-92). Kamana'o is also Hawai'i's career leader in assists per game at 13.71. This season, the two-time WAC Player of the Year is the only one in the country averaging more than 13.5 assists (13.83), 2.5 digs (2.66) and one block (1.04) per game.

UH senior Ashley Watanabe is four digs short of Teee Williams' single-season record of 437, set in 1988. Watanabe finished seven digs short last year when she broke her hand before the NCAA Tournament.

The only NCAA Tournament Hawai'i missed was in 1992. The Rainbows are 56-20 (.737) in the tournament. They are 17-2 in the first round (with four first-round byes), but just 5-2 away from home. UH has not lost a second-round match. Hawai'i has advanced to eight NCAA final fours and 21 NCAA Regionals, including the last seven.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.