OK, before we get to the debatable stuff, let’s take care of the undeniable when it comes to the University of Hawaii as it exits the Western Athletic Conference. When speaking of sustained excellence, the UH Wahine volleyball team dominated the conference like no other. It’s simple as that.

Dave Shoji’s Rainbow Wahine entered the WAC in 1996 and started a streak of 16 years with at least a share of the regular-season or tournament championship (usually both). It ends only because UH rejoins the Big West this fall. Hawaii won 232 WAC matches and lost just four — a .983 winning percentage. The Wahine were to WAC volleyball what Stephen Hawking was to the math portion of the SAT.

It got to the point where some of us took it for granted; but not too many, as the Wahine continue to lead the nation in attendance year after year despite the fact that most of their conference home mismatches were rarely anything more than glorified scrimmages. It was pretty much the same on the road, minus the big crowds.

If there is another college sports team as dominant in its league over the past 16 seasons — and in an arena sport with significant expenses, but that pays for itself — I want to hear about it.

Not that the Wahine were never tested in the WAC … While I put together a list of UH’s top 10 moments in its 33 years of WAC membership, the 1998 conference championship match against BYU kept coming up.

It was epic before people started overusing that word. UH finally won, 15-12, 21-19, 13-15, 16-18, 24-22 — 3 hours and 38 minutes of back-and-forth high-level volleyball, between rivals with a title at stake.

"Hawaii and BYU both had 10 to 15 match points," said Star-Advertiser volleyball beat writer Ann Miller, who worked the match for the Advertiser, and was happy for deadline purposes that it was in Las Vegas and started at noon.

It remains the longest match in NCAA history, and is probably part of the reason we now have rally scoring.

It gets a high spot, No. 4, on my UH-WAC highlights list. It came close to edging another beating of BYU for No. 3. But the baseball team’s sweep of the Cougars in the 1980 WAC championship series gets the nod for a couple of reasons.

First, it helped propel Les Murakami’s team into the College World Series, where the Rainbows finished second. "I remember Les Murakami standing on the dugout steps after the second loss to Arizona and saying we’d be back," said longtime UH baseball radio voice Don Robbs. "It never happened, but it remains quite an achievement."

Also, "Since it was Hawaii’s first year in the WAC, it helped legitimize UH’s membership," said Star-Advertiser columnist Ferd Lewis, who covered the Rainbows that season.

Times sure have changed — imagine that, proving yourself worthy of the WAC. But it was UH’s first membership in a conference, and the WAC was much stronger 33 years ago.

It was also more robust from top to bottom in football in 1992 than it was in 2007, which brings us to the big debate. Which was Hawaii’s most significant WAC moment, winning the Holiday Bowl in 1992, or getting to the Sugar Bowl by going unbeaten 15 years later?

"That’s a tough one," said Star-Advertiser sports editor Paul Arnett, who covered both teams, as the Star-Bulletin football beat writer in ’92 and its sports editor in ’07. "But I’d have to say the Sugar Bowl because it’s a BCS game and all that entails. Also, we’re talking about a program that went 0-12 just a few years before (in 1998). That’s pretty remarkable. The Holiday Bowl was also impressive, beating a good team (Illinois) from the Big Ten."

Lewis also covered both teams, as Advertiser columnist. He agrees that 2007 wins out in a photo finish. "Getting to the Sugar Bowl was bigger. But at the time of the Holiday Bowl, that was one of the best seasons the WAC ever had. Four teams played in bowl games. And that’s when the Holiday Bowl really meant something."

At that time, four bowl games for a mid-major conference was a rarity, and UH won the WAC despite two conference losses.

"I remember the Illinois coach referring to Hawaii as a ‘nice little team,’ " said Robbs, who was in San Diego for the Holiday Bowl. "That made winning the game sweeter."

The underdog theme was a consistent one for UH and the WAC during the school’s affiliation with the league.

Two Rainbows basketball teams earned entry to the NCAA Tournament only by winning the conference tournament. The 2010 softball team was scoffed at nationally for its home-run-hitting style, but rode it to the World Series. Pounding long-time nemesis BYU in back-to-back football seasons is the greatest memory for many UH fans. Not much was expected of that 1992 football team headed into the season. The 2007 squad overcame several late deficits to remain undefeated.

Winning the Holiday Bowl was great — and the 1992 team will always have that: It won UH’s first mainland bowl game.

But 8-0 in the WAC and 12-0 in 2007 resulted in a UH player sitting among the Heisman finalists, nearly 20,000 Hawaii fans in the Superdome and several million dollars in the bank accounts of UH and its WAC brethren.

The words "once in a lifetime" are often heard in reference to that team.

Indeed. Once in a lifetime. So 2007 football gets my vote, too, for UH’s greatest WAC highlight.