In 1998, the Rainbows' six nonconference series are with Florida State, UCLA, the University of San Francisco, Cal State-Sacramento, Loyola Marymount and the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

Rainbows assistant coach Carl Furutani said that Pac-10 South powerhouses California and Stanford declined to come to Hawaii because of scheduling conflicts.

"California is going to play in the eastern part of the United States next year," Furutani said. "And Stanford said they might be interested in playing here in 1999.

"We had Pepperdine all lined up, but they called and said they couldn't come because of a scheduling conflict. The thing that hurt is, we turned down the University of Texas to play Pepperdine. So Texas is coming here to play UH-Hilo next year, but not us.

"What's going to be difficult is the Rainbow Easter Tournament. With the new rule that teams can come here only once every four years to get the exemption is going to hurt us. For example, Wichita State can't come to the tournament again until 2001."

UH head coach Les Murakami said that Wichita State will come here for a three-game series in 1999. The Rainbows will then go to Wichita State in 2000 to complete the home-and-home arrangement.

Next year, Hawaii's 12 crossover games in Western Athletic Conference play will be at Air Force and Rice, with Texas Christian University and Grand Canyon coming here. Hawaii also has 18 games with West Division opponents San Jose State, San Diego State and Fresno State.

"We have a very difficult six-game stretch at San Diego State and Fresno State next year," Murakami said. "I hope we vote to count the crossover games again because we should do well against Air Force and Grand Canyon."

This year, Hawaii's crossover games were against top North Division schools Utah and Brigham Young University -- both bound for the WAC tournament -- and South Division opponents Nevada-Las Vegas and New Mexico. Hawaii went 5-7 against those schools.

The WAC basketball coaches recently voted not to count the crossover games in the league standings because some teams had tougher opponents than others. Murakami wants to keep counting them in baseball, but he also wants the tournament to expand to eight teams.

"Overall, our schedule is still pretty good," Murakami said. "I don't think we will be hosting a national preseason tournament like they wanted to this year. Our Easter tournament field won't be as strong as this year's, but we should still have some good teams in it."