CLAIRE C. LAURENCE/Arizona Daily Wildcat Wildcat outside hitter Kim Glass may have been the latest athlete to suffer from the Sports Illustrated jinx. After appearing in the magazine, her UA squad lost to UC Santa Barbara.

The good news for the UA volleyball team is that an ESPN analyst said during the bracket announcement show that Arizona is the team that could best match up athletically with No. 1 seed Southern California.

The bad news is that the UA will probably have to match up with the Women of Troy.

No. 22 Arizona (17-14) would likely have to face USC (29-0), the undefeated defending national champions, which returned all its starters this season, if the Wildcats advance to their fifth straight Sweet 16.

"Right now, we just don't even think about them until we have to face them. Should that happen, then we'll start thinking about them," said UA head coach Dave Rubio about his team's bracket.

The road to the Wildcats' fourth Elite Eight in a row may be a little easier for the UA, as it is one of only four teams to win a game against the Trojans this season.

"They're (just) another team," said sophomore outside hitter Kim Glass about the chance to play USC for a third time. "But we have Wisconsin first and we take it one game at a time, and we don't get intimidated by the name. We just go out there and play our game."

The Women of Troy have won six of seven games against the UA this year, but Arizona beat USC in the Los Angeles Sports Arena in 2001 en route to its first Final Four.

Stacking the Pac: Best of the West may collide early

After last year's tournament seemed like the Pac-10 invitational - the conference had eight teams invited to the tourney, including four teams in the Elite Eight and two in the title match - the committee seems to have gone out of its way to avoid a similar fate in 2003.

Of the six Pac-10 teams in this year's tourney, the Lincoln, Neb. region has three, (USC, UA and UCLA) and the Long Beach, Calif. region has two, while the Gainesville, Fla. region has none.

If all three Pac-10 teams advance to the regional in Nebraska, the ninth-seeded Cornhuskers (26-4) will be at a marked advantage against the Wildcats, the Women of Troy or the eighth-seeded Bruins. Nebraska has had 40 sellouts in a row in the 4,000-seat venue.

Also, with 21 teams in the tournament from west of New Mexico, there are none in the Gainesville region, ensuring that at least one eastern team will reach the Final Four. Only one Pac-10 team, No. 10 seed California (23-6), is on that entire side of the bracket, greatly decreasing the odds of another All-Pac-10 title match.

Six Pac teams make tourney

The Pac-10 fell short of its record of eight bids last year, but fared well with six. The Big Ten had the most with seven and the Big 12, Big West and West Coast Conferences had six as well.

"The Pac-10 always represents well in the tournament," said sophomore middle blocker Bre Ladd. "I definitely think it was represented well."

Glass latest to suffer SI jinx

Apparently, Wildcat fans need not worry that the UA lost any momentum in its 3-0 loss to No. 20 UC Santa Barbara on Saturday. The Wildcats were simply jinxed.

Glass is featured in Faces in the Crowd in Sports Illustrated's current issue. The magazine is notorious for jinxing teams and players by placing them on the cover of an issue.

Arizona versus the field

Twelve UA opponents were selected for the tournament. The Wildcats went 7-11 against those teams, which includes six of the 16 seeded teams and the top seed in three of the regions.

Wildcats tower over Big Ten

While the UA has never played first round foe Wisconsin, the Wildcats do own the other ten Big Ten teams, with a 14-2 record against them.

Hawaii happy to stay home

No. 2 seed Hawaii may have been a big beneficiary of the committee's decision to stack the Pac - or at least, that's what its coach thinks.

Hawaii (32-1), who gets to host games the first two weekends of the tournament, was also pleased to avoid Arizona, Stanford and UCLA - teams which all almost beat them in the Aloha State.

"They were the three teams we went five (games) with," UH head coach Dave Shoji told the Honolulu Advertiser. "Obviously, any of those could have gone either way. Those teams are all familiar with Hawaii, having played here. Our home-court advantage probably would have disappeared with any of them."