Not until this past fall did the baseball coaches finally agree to a tournament site and how the teams would be selected for it.
"I wasn't sure we would ever get anything settled," WAC associate director Jeff Hurd said. "Nobody could agree on anything."
There are only a dozen schools in the WAC who play baseball, and one of them is league affiliate Grand Canyon. Those 12 teams were divided into three four-team divisions. The University of Hawaii is in the West Division with San Jose State, Fresno State and San Diego State.
Rainbows head coach Les Murakami is convinced it's the most difficult of the three, but those teams in the South might argue with him. That group includes No. 4-ranked Rice, Nevada Las-Vegas, Texas Christian University and the University of New Mexico.
The four teams in the North are Brigham Young University, the Air Force Academy, the University of Utah and Grand Canyon. The way things are set up for Hawaii this year, the Rainbows will play six home-and-away games with their West Division opponents, three home games with both Utah and UNLV, and three away games with both New Mexico and BYU.
"The good thing is, we get to play teams in the WAC we haven't faced in a while," Murakami said. "But to me, our division is the toughest because Fresno State and San Diego State usually field good baseball teams.
"San Jose State looks pretty good this year, too, so it's going to be tough for us. We also have some difficult road WAC games at BYU and New Mexico."
Hawaii opens its WAC schedule this weekend at San Jose State. The Spartans are 12-5 overall and coming off a weekend where they took two of three from West Division favorite Fresno State.
Preseason polls had the Spartans finishing last in the West, but that may be premature. Hawaii is only 5-14 overall, but the Rainbows still have a chance for postseason play should they do well in the league.
The top three teams in each division automatically advance to the WAC tournament, which is set for May 14-16 at San Diego State. The next three teams with the best WAC records round out the six-team field.
"I wish they had picked the three at-large teams based on records and ratings, but we couldn't agree on that," Murakami said. "It's still better than it's been the last few years."
Since 1993, the WAC tournament has included only the two division winners in a best two-out-of-three series. Under this new format, the Rainbows have a better chance of advancing.
"We like this format more because it involves more teams," Hurd said. "We'd like to make some money on the tournament and we feel like this is a good way to do it."
Hawaii was picked by the WAC coaches to finish third in the West behind Fresno State and San Diego State. The other division favorites were BYU and Rice. Both have played well so far this season, although Fresno State may not be as good as many coaches thought early on.
"They're a lot like us," Murakami said. "They have one good pitcher and a lot of young position players. I've been keeping a close eye on San Jose State. They look like they have a good team.
"It's going to be an interesting year because of all the new teams on our schedule. We kind of lost our rivalry with BYU, so I guess it's good that they're back on the schedule. The thing that worries me most is the travel. We'll be doing a lot more of it this year."