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With just one returning starter from last year, few would have blamed University of Hawaii volleyball coach Robyn Ah Mow if she had chosen to ease the Rainbow Wahine into their 2019 schedule with a Charmin-soft start.
With nine new players to incorporate into the roster and fit into the game plan, who would have squawked about Ah Mow loading up on Twinkie-like opponents early on? Some Arkansas-Pine Bluffs of volleyball, anyone?
But, as we learned when she was a player and are being reminded now that she is three seasons into being the Rainbow Wahine’s head coach, easy-does-it is not the Ah Mow way.
And the No. 20 Rainbow Wahine have their first regular-season national ranking since Nov. 28, 2016 to show for it.
By jumping into the deep end against then-No. 21 San Diego on Friday’s opening night, holding off a respectable St. John’s team Saturday and coming back with then-No. 13 Washington on the Sunday finale of the Rainbow Wahine Classic, the Wahine made their first 3-0 start since 2015 mean something.
To themselves, the fans and most poll voters.
It opened enough late-night eyes among the 64 voting members of the American Volleyball Coaches Association to vault the ’Bows from the mid-echelons of “also receiving votes,” where they had been cast in the preseason poll two weeks earlier, into the thick of things.
Though, apparently, several voters slept on — or through — UH’s victory; the Huskies (2-1) somehow managed to rank 16th, four spots higher that the Rainbow Wahine.
UH, assuming it takes care of business in the interim, will have ample opportunity to move up when it plays No. 17 Baylor and well-regarded Missouri on Sept. 21-22 in Waco, Texas.
That, too, smacks of an Ah Mow leap of faith. It marks UH’s first nonconference road tournament appearance since 2013 and was apparently undertaken because the ’Bows couldn’t find other opponents of sufficient strength to come to the Stan Sheriff Center.
So, instead of shrugging her shoulders and taking the easy way out by going online for rent-a-foe fillers, Ah Mow and the ’Bows are hitting the road to face Baylor, the team that ended their 2018 NCAA tournament run.
The benefits of eschewing a bottom-feeder schedule and playing up are already accumulating for UH. Namely, the Rainbow Wahine have begun banking what should prove to be valuable Ratings Percentage Index points.
The RPI is an NCAA-created metric to help gauge strength of schedule that the selection committee employs to help fill out its tournament field.
As former coach Dave Shoji put it in a tweet Monday, “Hate to play the RPI game after (first) weekend, but Wahine set themselves up for bid already. UW, USD, St. Johns will all have good records. But gotta keep improving too.”
Not to count NCAA tournament bids before they are awarded, but the ole coach has a point.
UH shouldn’t need to worry about its chances of an at-large berth this season. But if, for some reason, it ever came down to that because they didn’t win the Big West Conference regular-season championship and the automatic berth that goes with it, the Rainbow Wahine don’t figure to have to sweat out an on-the-bubble existence as they did last year.
What they have already done with some heavy lifting in this first week should have them on the path to a 27th consecutive postseason appearance.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
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