The tournament officially begins on Thursday, Dec. 3rd. It's win or go home time, folks. The NCAA bracket is out and the teams are set for the playoffs. Three of the top four seeds make perfect sense - Penn State at #1, Texas at #2 and Stanford at #4. The #3 seed turned out to be Florida State while Hawaii was saddled with a #12 seed.

Penn State should not be tested by any of the teams in the Gainesville Regional if they play like they have been all season. That is as it should be for the #1 seed and the #1 ranked squad. The other Regionals should be more hotly contested.

Now, I won't pretend to understand all that goes into seeding. There are complicated mathematical equations that lead to the final numbers, and the RPI, a calculation based on the winning percentages of each team, each of that team's opponents and each of the opponents of that team's opponents.

In other words, it has to do with strength of schedule. And I believe that is where Hawaii may have been lacking. In the RPI, Hawaii (ranked #3 nationally on the AVCA poll all season) actually ranked 22nd on the RPI, which likely hurt their seeding.

So should Hawaii have gotten a higher seed? Probably. But that's how the ball bounces. Tough news for Stanford, who will have to beat Hawaii or Illinois (both talented teams) to get to the Final Four, though they will be able to do so with the home court advantage. The Cardinal edged Washington out in the last weekend of the regular season to win the Pac-10 and get the higher #4 seed. But it is Washington that will have the smoother road to the Final Four.

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The last Coaches Poll of the regular season is in the books. The only change tot the top tier is that Washington lost its #4 spot after losing to #18 Oregon in five over the weekend.

Stanford is the official Pac-10 champ and moves into fourth place while the Huskies settle for sixth. Iowa State grabbed the #5 spot.

The only other noteworthy movement was Michigan's four-spot drop after losing two matches in three sets over the weekend. The first loss was to #1 Penn State (expected) and the second to unranked Ohio State (unexpected) to put the Wolverines at #16.

On Monday, the NCAA will announce the 2009 tournament seeds, brackets will get filled up and fates will be revealed. One team's path to the national title will take shape.

At this point there are favorites, challengers and long shots and everyone has their gaze locked upon the target on the #1 team's back. They all want to be the one to take down Goliath and none of them have anything to lose.

Life as the favorite can be very beneficial; you get the best seed, the easiest first round match-up, the most TV time and you carry with you the intimidation factor that can break an opponent before you even play the game.

But it can also be a team's undoing. That target on your back gets bigger and bigger as you rack up the wins. Read more...

As expected the Coaches Poll stayed pretty static this week. The top six remain unchanged from last week as most of the top teams were not challenged by the weekend's competition.

Of interest though - Penn State dropped game one to Purdue this week with a score of 31-29. The Nittany Lions ended up winning in four, but the loss breaks their nine-match streak of bagels. Purdue is not a team they want to be dropping games to this close to the playoffs.

UCLA's hot streak is officially over. They lost to #18 Oregon to fall two spots to #9. It has been a very topsy turvy season for the Bruins. We'll see if they can find some consistency once the playoffs begin.

Two more weeks until the first round of the NCAA tournament. Most of the top teams will not be challenged this weekend, but #6 Stanford will take on #11 Cal and that is always an unpredictable match-up.