Island Way and Paradise Road lead to the MGM Grand Garden where the University of Hawaii is the starring attraction at this week's Western Athletic Conference women's volleyball tournament. Strains of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" can be heard outside the Emerald Tower.
Rice is even on the tournament menu and could well be the Wahine's first opponent.
To no one's surprise, Hawaii (29-1) was seeded first and received a first-round bye in the 12-team tournament that begins here tomorrow.
The third-ranked Wa-hine will meet the winner of tomorrow's match between Rice and Texas-El Paso at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday.
The other seeds awarded byes were Mountain Division champion Brigham Young (2nd), San Diego State (3rd) and New Mexico (4th). Seven of the eight Pacific Division teams were included in the field.
There were surprises, however, over the bracketing of the inaugural tournament. WAC travel partners Fresno State and San Jose State, and Colorado State and Wyoming open tomorrow against each other; all four were in the tough Pacific Division during the regular season.
'It's very interesting the way teams were selected,' said CSU coach Rich Feller, whose team is seeded seventh despite finishing ahead of sixth seed Fresno State in the Pacific Division standings. "Actually, it's not a bad draw for us, getting to see Wyoming again so soon. It will give us a chance to do some things that we should have done the last time (losing in five Nov. 12).
"I think we're playing pretty well right now and definitely have the capability of going right through our draw. If we play like we did against Hawaii (losing in five Nov. 8), we can go all the way to the finals and play them again."
That loss to Hawaii was the first of three consecutive matches in a span of five days that CSU lost in rally scoring fifth sets. Last night, CSU didn't have that problem, closing out the regular season with a 15-11, 15-6, 15-6 win over host UNLV at South Gym.
The Lady Rebels snuck into the tournament as the 12th and final seed, despite dropping their last five matches and 12 of their last 13. UNLV was the only one of the three first-year WAC programs to advance to the postseason event.
The decision to choose UNLV (3-13, 5-20) over Southern Methodist (3-13, 7-24) took up about half of yesterday's 90-minute committee conference call, WAC deputy commissioner Margie McDonald said.
"You wouldn't believe how close it was between UNLV and SMU," McDonald said. "It went beyond overall records. We looked at games-won and games-lost, and they were tied. We even looked at points-for and points against, and the percentage difference was something like .029.
"In the end, it came down to a vote of the (WAC) senior women administrators. We're very happy about the attractiveness of the field and we expect some great matches that first round."
"We're just happy to be in," said UNLV coach and former Wahine All-American Deitre Collins, her team facing Utah tomorrow. "We made our goal, and that was to make the tournament. For whatever reason we got in, and I'm hoping it's because they felt we played well enough at times, I'm happy.
"What made it for me was when (CSU coach) Rich Feller said after our match he felt we were a good representative. I think it says a lot about the strength our (Pacific) division. It's going to be interesting to see how our division comes out against the Mountain teams."
UNLV is the only other Pacific team in Hawaii's bracket. BYU is the only Mountain team in the other bracket.
The pairings met with Wahine coach Dave Shoji's approval. He preferred not seeing teams that Hawaii had defeated twice already this year.
"It's tough to beat a team three times in a season," Shoji said. "For us, I'm kind of glad we're going to see someone different, someone we haven't played this year.
"The UTEP-Rice game is a toss-up. I don't know who to expect. Based on seedings, we should see New Mexico (in Friday's semifinal). And I'd like to see BYU, instead of San Diego State in the final, if we get that far. But there's no guarantees. We have to take care of our stuff and I think we've been playing well."
If all goes according to the MGM story line, the yellow brick road leads over the rainbow to the Land of Awes with Hawaii playing the leading role.