To the surprise of no one, the Hawaii Rainbows were left out of the field of 64 for the NCAA baseball tournament announced Monday morning.

Coaches and players who hurriedly checked their phones after landing on Oahu hours after the field was announced quickly felt the disappointment they had braced for.

Hawaii (34-25) had its season come to an end with a 15-4 loss to Fresno State on Saturday night in the Western Athletic Conference tournament final at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Ariz.

The Bulldogs (40-14) were awarded a No. 2 seed in the UCLA regional, one of four host sites in the West.

Oregon State, Arizona State and Cal State Fullerton, which swept the Rainbows this season, will also host regionals.

St. John’s (N.Y.), with an RPI of 54, according to boydsworld.com, was included in the field ahead of LSU, which finished at 26 in the RPI rankings.

It highlighted a different approach among the committee, which tended to favor teams that finished higher in lesser conferences than the seventh-, eighth- or ninth-place teams out of the bigger conferences, such as the SEC and the Pac-10.

Oregon, which had an RPI of 53 and split against UH to start the season, was left out of the field.

"As I reflect on the past few days, I think our committee perhaps did a better job of putting the RPI where I think it should be in terms of a single tool to evaluate," chairman of the Division I Baseball Committee Tim Weiser said on a conference call with members of the media.

"I think a lot of times that becomes bigger than it really should be. We probably didn’t use the RPI as the hammer that maybe it’s been perceived as being in previous years."

Weiser said 31 teams were considered for the final seven at-large spots, including Hawaii, which won a share of the regular-season WAC title.

"I know for a fact that (Hawaii) was brought forward by the regional advisory committees and brought to our committee for discussion," he said. "Yes, they were given consideration."

The Rainbows are the last WAC team to receive an at-large berth. UH was 43-15 when it was picked for the Corvallis regional in 2006, losing to eventual national champion Oregon State in the final.

Warrennolan.com, which also tracks the RPIs of teams in multiple sports, had Hawaii’s at 56, two behind at-large selection Dallas Baptist, and five behind St. John’s.

With the season officially over, the Rainbows will wait and see how next week’s Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft will affect the returnees for next year.

Hawaii, which took a roster of 25 to the WAC tournament, loses five seniors. Juniors Kolten Wong and Lenny Linsky are all but gone as potential first-round and supplemental-round draft picks.

Pitchers Matt Sisto and Connor Little and outfielder Collin Bennett are also draft-eligible juniors who could get a look.

Wong said he received an invite last week to attend the draft in Secaucus, N.J., but hasn’t yet decided whether to go.