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Rainbow Wahine volleyball moves up in NCAA ranking

BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COM
                                Hawaii players celebrated a point in the third against Cal Poly, Nov. 3, at the Stan Sheriff Center. Hawaii’s hope of hosting in the postseason got a little push today with the Rainbow Wahine moving to 11 in the Ratings Percentage Index.

BRUCE ASATO / BASATO@STARADVERTISER.COM

Hawaii players celebrated a point in the third against Cal Poly, Nov. 3, at the Stan Sheriff Center. Hawaii’s hope of hosting in the postseason got a little push today with the Rainbow Wahine moving to 11 in the Ratings Percentage Index.

Hawaii’s hope of hosting in the postseason got a little push today with the Rainbow Wahine moving to 11 in the Ratings Percentage Index, the computer-generated computer system used by the NCAA to rate strength of schedule and seed the national tournament.

The NCAA traditionally has awarded teams with RPIs of 1 to 16 hosting duties for the first and second rounds of the tournament. Hawaii has not hosted a subregional since 2013.

Also today, the Rainbow Wahine (24-3, 14-2 Big West) remained at No. 18 in the American Volleyball Coaches Association Top 25. Baylor (23-1), which upset then-No. 1 Texas last week, returned to the top spot.

The Bears received 30 first-place votes in leaping over Pitt (28-1), which received 20 votes when staying at No 2. Defending national champion Stanford (22-4, 11 votes) moved to No. 3, Texas (20-3, 2 votes down to No. 4 and Wisconsin (21-5, 1 vote) still at No. 5.

Hawaii lost to Baylor but has wins over three other ranked teams: No. 9 Washington (23-5), No. 20 San Diego (23-5) and No. 23 UCLA (16-11). The Wahine also defeated Missouri, which is outside the Top 25 with 35 points, putting the Tigers (19-7) at 29th.

The Wahine clinched the Big West title with last week’s victories over Cal State Northridge and Long Beach State, the last matches of the regular season. It earned Hawaii the conference title and the automatic berth into the NCAA.

Monday’s RPI is the last publicly released rating before the 64-team tournament field is announced on Sunday. Hawaii has put in a bid to host with first-round matches likely on Friday, Dec. 6, and the second round on Saturday, Dec. 7.

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