That headline is misleading, because it’s not bad luck, exactly—it’s a poor decision made by the decision-makers behind the 2008 NCAA Women’s Volleyball Championship Bracket.  Long Beach State, which just the night before the bracket was released had defeated no. 19 Colorado State soundly, got two hard breaks.  First, they’re playing Pepperdine, an incredibly tough opponent for the 25-5 49ers to draw in the first round.  That falls within the realm of reasonable bracket construction, though—especially on the west coast, teams are going to have tough first round matches.

Harder to swallow, however, is the location of the match.  Many on the team had hoped that Long Beach State would be hosting a regional, and their win over Colorado State was supposed to help that hope along.  The team figured that, at worst, they’d have a short drive to the match—Nicole Vargas said on Saturday that she expected to bus to UCLA.  However, not only did LBSU not get a regional, they won’t really even be playing in the region, as they’re going to have to drive north to get to Stanford, where they’ll be playing Pepperdine.   There are two regionals that are closer, one at UCLA and one at USC.

That USC gets to host a regional is puzzling—they finished 16-11 on the season, after all.  The NCAA must believe they’ll sell more tickets, or be afraid of the fabled USC alumni base…In any event, the 49ers will be playing in Palo Alto against a tough Pepperdine Waves team, at 4:30pm on Friday.