There are a couple of historical footnotes worth mentioning this week as No. 5 Hawaii hosts No. 11 UC Santa Barbara in their final series as Mountain Pacific Sports Federation members.

Next season, the two programs join their female counterparts in the Big West, a six-team conference that will be the first men’s volleyball league that has a voice in the NCAA. Currently, the MPSF is one of four hybrid conferences that sponsors the sport — the others are the EIVA, MIVA and Conference Carolinas — and “it’s probably the best thing that has happened to men’s volleyball in a long time,” Gauchos coach Rick McLaughlin said. “It’s very exciting to finally have a conference with a voice in the NCAA, one that we’ve never had before.”

Just how loud that voice will be remains to be seen but most coaches feel that it will speak to the need to expand the NCAA postseason tournament to at least eight teams. The current six-team format awards automatic berths to the winners of the four conferences and two at-large bids; the top two seeds have byes into the semifinals with the four remaining teams in play-in matches, the winners of which advance to the semis.

Next season that all changes as the Big West will receive an automatic berth, leaving one at-large team.

The one thing that does not change, this season or future ones, is the intensity of the rivalry between the Rainbow Warriors and the Gauchos.

It dates back to 1980 when Hawaii was in the West Coast Volleyball Conference and UCSB in the California Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (the forerunner of the MPSF). It was Dave Shoji’s second season of heading both the UH men’s and women’s volleyball programs and the first time taking the Warriors to play at his alma mater.

It wasn’t a happy homecoming in Robertson “Rob” Gym with the Gauchos prevailing in five, setting a tone that has continued for four decades. Although Hawaii leads the overall series 44-37, the Warriors trail 16-21 when visiting Isla Vista, including 1-7 under coach Charlie Wade.

“It’s a tough place to play,” Wade said. “Their teams are always good. Rick (UCSB coach McLaughlin) does a really good job and his guys play hard every single night.

“I like playing them, you learn a lot about yourself every time. But I don’t like playing them there. It’s the opposite end of the spectrum from (the Stan Sheriff Center).”

The Klum Gym-esque “Rob” seats 2,600 to 4,000 (depending on configuration) compared to the Sheriff’s 10,300.

Hawaii senior setter Jennings Franciskovic is happy that his final two regular-season matches are at home and not 70 miles up the 101 from where he grew up in Westlake Village, Calif. The Warrior seniors are 0-4 at Rob but 2-0 at the SSC in the past three seasons.

“I know a lot of their guys from high school and USA volleyball, and it’s always fun to play against them,” Franciskovic said.

“They’re always a good team. We need to come out strong regardless of who’s on the other side of the net, or who’s on our side of the net if we use different lineups. We need to step up and play well, and focus on us being back in MPSF play.”

The Warriors are coming off two victories over Grand View, the top-ranked team in the NAIA. Wade used 13 players in Friday’s sweep, 15 in Sunday’s four-setter, and numerous combination when playing three liberos, two setters, three opposites and having Larry “Tui” Tuileta switch from libero to outside hitter against the Vikings.

That makes Hawaii hard to scout, McLaughlin said, but so is UCSB. The Gauchos used several combinations when swept twice by No. 2 UCLA, first last Wednesday in Westwood then in Saturday’s match that was moved to the larger Thunderdome from Rob Gym.

“We both have a lot of young guys and we’re trying to figure ‘us’ out, too,” McLaughlin said. “The goal is to improve each night.”

The key to beating UCI was serving, Wade said.

“We served in-bounds and hard all night,” he said of the match for UH had seven aces to 11 errors. “You have to do that to beat good teams. When we serve and pass consistency, we will be in it against anybody.

“The key is to be consistent all night, every night.”