United Athletic Conference

THE WAC IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT WAC teams are a combined
101-79 (.561) in the NCAA Tournament since 1981. Current WAC teams are a combined 49-29
(.628) in tournament play. Three of the current league teams have competed in the tournament, including Fresno State, Hawai`i and San Jose State. Since the WAC began the sponsorship of women's athletics in 1990, WAC teams are 9-6 (.600) in the NCAA's. Since 1990, the WAC has had at least two teams compete in the NCAA Tournament every year.

HAWAI`I IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT Hawai`i is one of the
nation's most successful NCAA Tournament teams. The Rainbow Wahine are playing in their 19th tournament, missing only in 1992, and have compiled a 40-15 (.727) overall record. This is their fifth appearance as a WAC member and the Wahine have compiled a 9-4 (.692) mark. Hawai`i has won the NCAA title three times: 1982, 1983 and 1987. The Rainbow Wahine finished second in 1998 and 1996. Last season, Hawai`i lost in the first round of regionals to Texas A&M, 15-9, 12-15, 15-9, 15-12 in Honolulu.

SAN JOSE STATE IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT This is the 11th appearance for San Jose State in the NCAA Tournament, its second under head coach Craig Choate and its second since joining the WAC in 1996. The Spartans own a 7-11 (.389) all-time record in tournament play, 0-1 as a WAC member. SJSU last appeared in the tournament in 1998 when it lost to Colorado, 3-0. Long Beach State and San Jose State last met in the NCAA Tournament in 1990, when the 49ers defeated the Spartans, 3-0.

AGAINST THE FIELD The two teams that are participating in the 2000 NCAA Tournament have a 9-8 (.529) combined record against the tournament field. Hawai`i is 8-1 with wins over Texas A&M, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Pepperdine (twice), San Jose State (twice) and Cal Poly. Their only loss came at the hands of Long Beach State. San Jose State is 1-7 against the field with its lone win coming against Arizona
State. The Spartans losses have come against Loyola Marymount, Cal Poly, CS Sacramento, Hawai`i (twice), Pacific and Arizona.

NCAA OPPONENTS Here's a quick look at the WAC's first round opponents: Davidson is 24-11 overall and is the 16th seed in the West Region. The Wildcats received an automatic bid after winning the Southern Conference. This season marks Davidson's second-straight appearance in the NCAA Tournament. This season, the Wildcats have been led by Mara Mordini, a senior outside hitter and Roberta Quis, a sophomore middle blocker. Mordini leads the team in kills with 547 (4.31 kpg) and digs with 636 (5.01 dpg). Quis leads the team in hitting percentage (.278) and in blocks with 133 (1.06 bpg).

Long Beach State, ranked 13th in the nation, is 22-7 overall and received an at-large bid. The 49ers have advanced to three-straight Final Fours and are led by junior middle blocker Cheryl Weaver's 4.6 kills, 2.38 digs and 1.57 blocks and
junior middle blocker Tayyiba Haneef's 4.0 kills and 1.04 blocks per game. Long Beach State is most recently coming off a 3-1 victory over Hawai`i at the Long Beach State Tournament, the Rainbow Wahine's only loss of the season.

COMMON OPPONENTS San Jose State and Long Beach State have had several common opponents this season. Both teams faced Nevada, Cal Poly, Pacific, Hawai`i and Boise State. SJSU and LBSU each defeated Nevada and Boise State, while the Spartans lost to Cal Poly and the 49ers split their season series with the Mustangs. The Spartans lost to Hawai`i twice this season, while the 49ers defeated the Rainbow Wahine. Finally, both SJSU and LBSU lost their matches to Pacific.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK San Jose State's Joslynn Gallop has been named the Western Athletic Conference Volleyball Player of the Week.

Gallop, a 6-1 senior middle blocker from Roseburg, Ore. (Roseburg), paced San Jose State to a 2-2 record this past week. The Spartans concluded their regular season with a 22-9 overall record, 13-3 in the WAC, good for second place.

For the week, Gallop averaged 4.69 kills, 3.00 digs, 1.15 blocks and hit .376 (61-14-125). She also tallied five assists and two service aces. Against TCU, Gallop recorded 12 kills, 10 digs and eight total blocks. Against SMU, she hit .472 (19-2-36) to go along with three assists, 13 digs and four block assists. Gallop was named to the all-tournament team at the Pacific Tournament, where she notched eight kills and two digs against Arizona. She finished up the regular season with 22 kills and 14 digs against Pepperdine.

Gallop broke the San Jose State career blocking record against Pacific and now has 450. She also broke the school's single-season kills record against Pacific and now has 617.

Gallop currently leads the WAC in kills (5.51 kpg), ranks fifth in hitting percentage (.309), is tied for 10th in blocks (1.11 bpg) and is 14th in digs (2.85 dpg).

Other nominees included: Jessica Sudduth, Hawai`i and Stacy Zimmerman, UTEP.

OTHERS NOMINATED Statistics and notes of others nominated
for Player of the Week: Hawai`i's Jessica Sudduth, a senior leftside hitter, tallied 49 kills on 133 attempts and 12 errors for a .278 hitting percentage in four matches. She also added two assists, three service aces, 48 digs (3.43 dpg) and 12 total blocks. Against Rice, Sudduth hit .545 (12-0-22) to go along with six digs and three block assists. Against UTEP, she hit .444 (12-0-37) and added 12 digs. Against Cal Poly, Sudduth had 14 kills and 15 digs, while recording 11 kills and 15 digs against Long Beach State. UTEP's Stacy Zimmerman, a senior outside hitter, closed out her career with four-straight double-digit kill performances and three double-doubles. She averaged 3.87 kills and 3.33
digs per game last week, while adding five assists, one service ace and nine blocks. She
became just the second Miner to reach 1,000 career kills and digs.

WAC'S OVERALL RECORD The WAC is 92-56 (.622) in non-conference action this season. The WAC also owns a 36-29 (.554) record against the 10 other Division IA conferences.

IN THE POLLS Hawai`i is ranked third in the USA Today/AVCA poll with 1,355 points and third in the Volleyball Magazine poll behind Nebraska and USC. For the past six weeks, the Rainbow Wahine were ranked No. 1 in the Volleyball Magazine poll. Hawai`i had won 27-straight, its longest winning streak since the 1995 season.

HAWAI`I CLINCHES WAC TITLE For the fifth consecutive season, Hawai`i has won the WAC regular season title and will receive the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Rainbow Wahine clinched the title after defeating Nevada on Nov. 16. Since joining the WAC in 1996, Hawai`i has compiled a 71-1 record in WAC competition.

IMPROVEMENTS FROM LAST SEASON Several WAC teams have made great improvements in the win column compared to last. TCU, 15-18, has won its most matches in school history and has won three more matches this season compared to last year. Rice, 17-16 has won six more matches, Tulsa, 20-13, has won 10 more matches and UTEP has made the biggest turnaround from last year. The Miners, 16-15, has 11 more victories this season compared to last.

LONG BEACH STATE SNAPS HAWAI`I'S 26 MATCH WINNING STREAK
With an unbeaten regular season record on the line, Hawai'i fell victim to Long Beach State, falling 15-13, 15-8, 13-15, 15-10, before 3,025 at The Pyramid, the 10th largest crowd in LBSU history. The Rainbow Wahine had their 27-match win streak come to a halt, losing for the first time this season. Hawai`i was led by Lily Kahumoku's 19 kills followed by Kim Willoughby's 15 kills and 14 digs. As a team, the Wahine hit just .162 and were out-blocked 19 to 8.5. The Rainbow Wahine played without middle hitter Maja Gustin, who suffered a sprained right ankle in Friday's win over Cal Poly. Gustin will likely be out of action for 10-14 days.

REGIONAL RANKINGS In the final set of regional rankings, Hawai`i
tops the West Region poll, released Nov. 15 by the NCAA. The district is comprised of schools from the WAC, Big West and Mountain West Conferences. Following Hawai`i is: 2. Pacific, 3. Colorado State, 4. UC Santa Barbara, 5. Brigham Young, 6. Long Beach State, 7. Utah, 8. Utah State, 9. Cal Poly, and 10. San Jose State.

ACADEMIC ALL-DISTRICT TEAMS ANNOUNCED Rice's Leigh Leman,
a junior outside hitter, has been selected to the Verizon/CoSIDA academic all-District VI team. Leman owns a 3.79 GPA in Sports Medicine/Pre-Med and Spanish. In addition, Hawai`i's Lily Kahumoku was a second team and Jennifer Carey was a third team all-District VIII selection. Kahumoku, a sophomore outside hitter owns a 3.65 GPA in Psychology while Carey, a sophomore setter, owns a 3.61 GPA in Pre-Business.

CAREER LEADERS San Jose State's Joslynn Gallop became the WAC's all-time kills leader on Oct. 28 against Fresno State. She currently has 1,953 kills. She is also averaging 4.41 kills per game over her career, a total that ranks fourth all-time in the WAC. Gallop also ranks ninth on the WAC's all-time blocks list with 450. SMU's Melissa Godwin currently ranks sixth on the WAC's all-time service ace list with 153. Tulsa's Kristien Van Lierop has moved into sixth place on the WAC's all-time digs list with 1,296. Rice's Karolina Zelinka has moved into 10th place on the WAC's all-time dig list with 1,217.

WAC RECORDS BROKEN Three single-season WAC records were broken this season, including kills, assists and digs. San Jose State's Joslynn Gallop recorded 313 kills, breaking her old record of 312 set last season. The Spartans' Savannah Smith recorded 803 assists this season, breaking the record of 730 held by Hawai`i's Nikki Hubbert in 1998. Finally, Nevada's Suzanne Stonebarger notched 254 digs, breaking the old record of 236 set by Sharon Browning of New Mexico in 1992.

RANKED OPPONENTS The WAC is 7-16 (.304) in non-conference matches against teams that are ranked or have been ranked sometime this season in the top 25. (Hawai`i - 5-1; Nevada - 1-4; Rice - 0-2; San Jose State - 0-3; SMU - 0-1; TCU - 0-2; and Fresno State - 0-3). Hawai`i is also 3-0 against top 10 teams.

HOME SWEET HOME WAC teams have combined for a 76-40 (.655) record on their home courts this season. Hawai`i is the only team that remains unbeaten (18-0), while San Jose State has only two losses (7-2).

20 SOMETHING Three WAC teams have reached the 20 win plateau, including Hawai`i (27), San Jose State (21) and Tulsa (20). It marks the third-consecutive season and the fourth under head coach Craig Choate that the Spartans have won at least 20 matches in a season. This is the first time in school history that Tulsa won 20 matches.

HAWAI`I ECLIPSES 100,000 ATTENDANCE MARK Hawai`i's crowd of 7,017 against Fresno State on Nov. 4, shot the Rainbow Wahine over the 100,000 attendance mark for the sixth- straight year. The Rainbow Wahine has now drawn 108,974 fans and is the only program in the country to draw more than 100,000 for six-consecutive years.

HAWAI`I LEADS NATION IN ATTENDANCE For the seventh-straight
season, Hawai`i leads the nation in attendance, averaging 6,811 fans per contest in 16 matches. In addition, Hawai`i owns 16 of the top 19 single-match attendance figures. The Rainbow Wahine drew 8,425 fans for their match against Pepperdine, the second highest total in the nation this season.

TOURNAMENT SUCCESS Overall this season, WAC teams are a combined 58-24 in 25 tournaments with 10 championships. Tulsa is 10-0 in tournaments this season after winning the Morehead State Tournament, Wisconsin-Green Bay Tournament and the Dr. Tom Caims Golden Hurricane Classic. Hawai`i is 6-0 this season after winning tournament titles at home in the Hawaiian Airlines Wahine Volleyball Classic and the Astons Imua Wahine Volleyball Challenge. SMU is 8-1 in tournaments after capturing the Weber State Tournament and the Ohio University Tournament. San Jose State is 8-2 after winning the UNLV Tournament and the Portland Tournament, while Fresno State is 7-4, winning the Brion's Grille Patriot Invitational.