The “lone wolf” concept has left Hawaii in the wilderness when it comes to women’s volleyball. It has been happening since 2013, when the Big West went from 10 teams to nine, leaving the Rainbow Wahine without a travel partner.
It created a situation where Hawaii played on back-to-back nights most weeks — home and away — and the Wahine were, also in most cases, the lone opponent of the week for a team that either had to travel to Honolulu or host Hawaii.
Then-coach Dave Shoji agreed to the schedule for several reasons, the biggest being the financial bottom line. Hawaii, one of the few volleyball programs in the country to make money, could draw larger crowds when playing on Fridays and Saturdays.
“I liked it because we got bigger crowds,” said Shoji, who retired in early 2017 after 42 seasons. “If we asked for a day in between, I’m sure they’d have given it to us. But then you’d get a lot of Thursday-Saturday scheduling and that hurts attendance. Plus you missed more class time.
“It never really hurt us in the past, but I think it was one of the reasons we lost (Saturday to UC Santa Barbara).”
Wahine coach Robyn Ah Mow-Santos didn’t want to use it as an excuse for being swept by the Gauchos on Saturday, one night after a huge five-set victory over Cal Poly. Hawaii needed two hours and 22 minutes to hand the then-No. 11 Mustangs their first conference loss.
Less than 24 hours later, the Wahine were back at the Stan Sheriff Center for UCSB, which had not played in a week.
“We’re not making that an excuse,” Ah Mow-Santos said before the Wahine left for their final conference road trip. “I’d rather have a day off. It has nothing to do with the loss. It would just be nice to have a day in between to prepare for the other team.
“It’s OK when we’re at home. It’s the road that is more of a problem, where you have to get up, get out of the hotel and travel for the next game. We could use that day in between.”
The only exception to the back-to-back road matches this season was the UC Davis-UC Irvine series. Hawaii played at Davis on Sept. 21, flew to Los Angeles the next day and played at Irvine on Sept. 23.
The Wahine close the conference season hosting UCI on Thursday, Nov. 15 and UCD on Friday, Nov. 16. That schedule was due to football at Aloha Stadium on Saturday, Nov. 17, and men’s and women’s basketball on Sunday, Nov. 18.
Having Cal Poly and UCSB on consecutive nights proved problematic on the road as well. After needing two hours and 20 minutes to top the Gauchos in five sets on Oct. 5, the Wahine had a 100-mile drive to San Luis Obispo for what would be a very tight four-set loss to the Mustangs.
Last week’s outcome ended up on Twitter. Shoji tweeted: “Time to revisit the back to back games in big west vb for Wahine. Means more missed class time and extra night on the road but fairer to us.”
When a Wahine fan questioned the scheduling, the Big West tweeted: “It’s a decision that UH has been a part of since they joined the conference. Every year’s schedule is looked at and goes through the coaches as well as the administrators for approval.”
This season’s schedule was approved at the conference coaches meeting in January 2017, a month before Shoji announced his retirement and Ah Mow-Santos was hired. The 2019 schedule has not been finalized and “we are in discussions about it,” said Hawaii athletic director David Matlin, adding that he spoke with conference commissioner Dennis Farrell on Wednesday. “My position is we need to relook at this, advocate for a more balanced schedule and what is best for our student-athletes.
“You want to maximize attendance, and logically that is Friday-Saturday. But I don’t know if that has to be the driving factor, that doesn’t have to be the absolute. I think this is an opportunity to see how it can be improved.”
The Wahine played conference matches on consecutive nights seven of eight weeks — the only exception was the road matches at UC Davis and UC Irvine. The back-to-back matches for the rest of the Big West ranged from two times (UC Irvine) to three times (Cal State Northridge and UC Davis) to four (Cal Poly, Cal State Fullerton, Long Beach State, UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara).
“There’s a process for changing the schedule,” Steve Chen, Big West assistant commissioner, said. “Schedules go from the coaches to the (Big West) council, then to the board. The council level is for the conflicts (discussion) and it can be addressed there.
“The other way is for the schools to agree to change dates as long as it doesn’t create a disadvantage for one.”
Things will change in 2020 when the conference adds UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield. Although the league still will have an odd number of teams, Chen said the plan is to have all schools playing two conference matches a week. Currently there are some weeks where teams have just one match and other weeks where they have three.
