Hawai'i went into a downward spiral in its 2007 volleyball debut last weekend. This weekend, the really tough teams are in town for the 20th annual Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Classic. Clearly, the Rainbow Wahine have to go back to ... well, what comes before "Square 1?"

Hawai'i (1-2) is two points from an 0-3 start going into tomorrow's Classic opener against unbeaten Kansas State (4-0). The Wildcats surged into the rankings at No. 25 after upsetting then-No. 14 Cal Poly last week. The 'Bows plummeted from 10th to 16th .

They have had three days to reflect on what went wrong last week, in an ASICS Rainbow Wahine Invitational that went from frustrating (a five-game loss to Michigan) to fortunate (a five-game win over Colorado State) to completely flat (a sweep by Oregon State). That last loss was the first time Hawai'i has been swept by an unranked Division I team since the poll started 25 years ago, and only the ninth time it had ever lost to an unranked team.

The glaringly erratic play of a team desperately searching for a lineup led UH coach Dave Shoji, after the CSU win, to issue a warning: "We have seven more (preseason) matches and we don't have an easy game. It's going to be like this every night. I think it's great for the fans, if they can stand it."

What they — and the Rainbow Wahine — could not stand was Sunday's slide against Oregon State, which was 3-24 last year. All the mistakes of the first two nights — the poor passing, watching balls fall in and playing balls on their way out, confusion on the block, mistakes at critical times ... were compounded into a miserable performance. There was no Kanoe Kamana'o to erase errors and no one playing well enough to put a team on her back.

"I thought they looked just physically and mentally burnt out ...," said manager Ryan Tsuji, in his seventh year with UH. "In all my years here I haven't seen a breakdown like that."

Now the 'Bows are trying to figure out if they need to play like they practice — Shoji swears training has gone well — or practice like they play. Kim Willoughby, the 2003 national player of the year, believes they have become too comfortable in practice. The former Rainbow Wahine All-American spoke to the team as an outsider looking in after Tuesday's practice.

"Kim was telling us we all want it and we're all working toward the same goal, but we just may not be as serious as we need to be in the practice gym," Jayme Lee said. "Maybe it's just because we don't know where we need to be. This (last) weekend was a really good eye-opener to show us we're not a great team. We have to work hard and continually get better."

Here's how bad it was last week: The 'Bows were out-hit .289 to .202 and out-blocked 37 to 30. Their outsides are hitting .164 and their middle blockers averaging less than one stuff a game.

The team does not doubt its talent and believes it can turn it around as soon as this weekend. It also knows something drastic needs to change. Team captain Tara Hittle focused on confidence Sunday. Senior Raeceen Woolford talked solely about working on "really simple things" in practice.

It sounded just like a week ago, before the scary start.

"It takes a game, takes playing other people besides yourself to really know where your game stands," Woolford said. "We have to practice how we play, have to train hard. Hopefully we got all the first-tournament jitters out. I think we're going to come back a little more free-flowing. We're lacking a lot of mental toughness and the mental part is so imperative to our success. We are in shape, we know how to play volleyball. We just have to fine-tune a few things mentally.

"We have to learn how to bounce back."

Quickly.

"It's just not fun losing," Shoji said. "We've worked hard and we weren't able to capitalize on our offseason. It didn't look like we were ready to play at that level. ... There were bright spots on every other play. We just can't string enough together yet to be really good. Everybody looked good at times over the weekend, but everybody looked pretty average too."

That level will be kicked up a notch this weekend with K-State, Louisville and fifth-ranked UCLA. Shoji, who has played a dozen people every match so far, still does not have a lineup. He says it is under "constant evaluation." But he does believe a good week of practice can go a long way toward easing the pain his team put itself through.

"I'd like to be 3-0 after this weekend," Shoji said. "But more important, we've just got to play better."

NOTES

Freshman Stephanie Ferrell returned home to Los Angeles last weekend for family reasons. She expects to be back tomorrow.

After dropping six spots in the Coaches Poll, Hawai'i fell from 10th to 18th in this week's Molten/Volleyball Magazine Women's College Top 20 Media Poll.

Reach Ann Miller at amiller@honoluluadvertiser.com.