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The Day from Hell began for UA volleyball coach Dave Rubio at 3:30 a.m. Sunday in Pullman, Wash.

He had a hangover, a mental hangover, like never before. A few hours earlier, the Wildcats had blown the final match of the regular season, losing in five sets to the worst team in the Pac-10.

Pullman was so empty on Thanksgiving weekend, so remote and dark and unpromising, that a mere 356 people showed up. The Cougars, who were 2-15 in the Pac-10, celebrated their 3-15 finish anyway.

"This is the first time I can say we won three Pac-10 games,'' WSU senior Brittany Johnson told the school's media relations department.

The loss was crippling for Rubio's young Wildcats, who finished the regular season 16-14 overall but an unseemly 6-12 in the Pac-10. How good is that? It is seventh place.

Working on a one-year contract in the nation's most prominent volleyball conference, Rubio speculated — hoped, perhaps? — that a 16-14 record would merit an at-large berth in the NCAA tournament.

"The NCAA has taken seven Pac-10 teams before," he said in October. He repeated the 16-14-will-be-good-enough qualifier in November.

But losing to the woeful Cougars seemed to nullify, or put into jeopardy, any RPI cushion gained by rousing victories over top-10 foes Oregon, Cal and USC.

By 4 a.m. Sunday, the groggy Wildcats were on Highway 195 for a two-hour trip to the Spokane airport.

Rubio could have chosen to return to Spokane immediately after Saturday's match, but doing so would have necessitated paying full price to stay in a Pullman hotel before the match, and another series of room charges in Spokane that night.

So he chose the economy route. The flight to Tucson was worse. The plane went to Boise, then Reno, then Los Angeles. The Wildcats arrived home at 2:30 p.m.

The long journey enabled Rubio to study the bubble teams that would vie for the final few berths in the NCAA tournament. New Mexico State finished 25-8, but the Aggies played in a substandard conference and beat no one of note. The powerhouse West Coast Conference would surely get four berths — San Diego, Pepperdine, St. Mary's and San Francisco — but Santa Clara finished 17-9 and was swept in its final three matches.

No way the WCC gets five teams, right?

And then there were cold-weather bubble-sitters such as 19-12 Iowa State, Western Michigan and Cincinnati. WMU lost to Ohio in its conference tournament and was swept by Valpo on Saturday night. Cincinnati was eliminated by Pitt in the Big East tournament. Not to disparage Pitt, but the Panthers this season lost to Duquesne and Ohio (twice).

"The NCAA's message has, to us, always been 'play somebody good,'" Rubio said.

Entering the final week of the regular season, six of volleyball's top 10 teams were Pac-10 teams. That meant Arizona played 12 wickedly difficult matches. In addition, Rubio scheduled 22-6 Mountain West Conference power Colorado State, which had played in 13 straight NCAA tournaments. Tough enough, right?

When the Wildcats scattered Sunday afternoon, Rubio instructed them to return to McKale Center in four hours to watch ESPNU's 8 p.m., broadcast of the NCAA's field of 64 volleyball teams.

They sat in silence as they saw Santa Clara, Iowa State, Cincinnati, Western Michigan and New Mexico State's names on the big board. No Arizona.

"We were pretty bummed out,'' Rubio said. "I thought this team had a chance to get on a run and get to the Sweet 16.''

Arizona has gone three seasons without qualifying for the NCAA tournament. It is a dramatic twist from Rubio's 10-season run, 1996-2005, in which the Wildcats were included in every NCAA tournament.

Last winter, UA athletic director Jim Livengood offered little encouragement. He did not give Rubio a raise in salary and offered a flat, one-year contract.

Who knows what comes next?

The Wildcats are so young that Rubio didn't sign anybody in last month's recruiting period. It wouldn't be a surprise if they opened the 2009 season in the top half of the Top 25.

"I'm disappointed for Dave and our gals,'' Livengood said Monday. "The key thing, looking at the Pac-10 standings, is that USC and UCLA finished 9-9, and we were below them at 6-12. The NCAA selection committee is looking for some point it can draw a line."

The line was drawn at .500. Arizona would have had the worst record of all 33 at-large teams in the field.

"I think we would've been an interesting matchup,'' Livengood said. "When everybody's playing well, when we don't have any illness or injuries, we're a pretty good team.''

This year, pretty good didn't make it.

Rubio said he will probably resume recruiting this weekend.

"Don't have a lot else to do,'' he said.