Hansen: Rubio, Cats holding their own in loaded Pac-12

“Oregon is so hard to prepare for,” he said. “And we’re so young.”

Rubio put on his reading glasses and looked at a scouting paper. “Gonna be tough,” he said. Assistant coach, Greg Whitis, nodded.

“They’re really good,” he said. “They’ve got a different style offensively.”

With the exception of softball’s Mike Candrea, no coach in UA history has faced as much Big Trouble as Dave Rubio. Ten days earlier, the Wildcats lost to No. 3 Texas. Two days earlier, it was No. 6 ASU. On Wednesday, No. 8 Stanford will visit McKale Center.

This is life in the big leagues of women’s college volleyball and Dave Rubio has traveled the big leagues since he stepped on campus in 1992.

He has coached 289 matches against teams ranked in the Top 25. Here’s some perspective: Lute Olson coached against 183 Top 25 opponents in a quarter-century on Arizona’s bench.

No. 5 Washington could win the national championship this season. Or maybe No. 2 USC. Stanford has already beaten No. 7 Illinois. The Pac-12 is so wickedly difficult that the final American Volleyball Coaches Association poll of 2014 ranked nine Pac-12 teams in the Top 25.

In Pac-12 volleyball, there is no rest among the wicked.

On Sunday, Arizona swept the Ducks 3-0 and the survivor in Rubio became manifest.

“We lost six starters from last year,” he said, a reference to the Wildcat squad seeded No. 11 nationally, which was then pitted against and upset by a surging BYU team that reached volleyball’s Final Four. “We’ve not only got Stanford and Cal coming in here this week, we go to Washington next Wednesday.”

In this league, coaching is like having the guillotine at your neck.

After ASU swept the Wildcats in 2007, former UA athletic director Jim Livengood was so unhappy that he walked to Rubio’s office and impulsively told him “you’re gone,” or something with a similar translation.

At the time, Rubio had gone to a Final Four, three Elite Eights and three Sweet 16s at Arizona. Equity prevailed; Livengood changed his mind.

The UA hired Rubio 24 years ago mostly because he won the 1989 NCAA Division II national championship at Cal-Bakersfield. When given the keys to the volleyball office at McKale, Rubio inherited an 0-18 Pac-10 squad. The Wildcats had been so bad that Rubio started 0-9 against ASU. He has since gone 26-11.

Rubio established a consistent Top 25 program by doing what all good coaches do: He recruited like a mad man, bringing in star players like Dana Burkholder, Jill Talbot, Kim Glass, Whitney Dosty, Madi Kingdon and setting whiz Penina Snuka.

He also surrounded himself with elite-level assistant coaches: Charita Stubbs is the former head coach at North Carolina State, and Greg Whitis, who has a reputation as a lock-down recruiter, has coached at Michigan, Tennessee and Clemson.

To beat Oregon on Sunday, and to replace two-thirds of last year’s rotation, the UA was resourceful. Rubio has a rising star in junior transfer Kalei Mau, who began her career at Big Ten power Minnesota.

Asked how long it took him to recruit the Minnesota transfer, Rubio smiled. “Immediately,” he said.

Mau had 42 kills in the ASU-Oregon weekend, which is like a baseball pitcher striking out 14 in one game and 12 the next.

“I’m a late bloomer,” Mau said Sunday. “I didn’t start to play until my junior year of high school. This is all kind of unreal to me.”

Late bloomer? In the first month of the season, Mau has bloomed. She has 204 kills. In the Pac-12, only USC All-American Samantha Bricio has more.

“Our team motto is ‘every week we get a little better,’ ” said Mau.

Getting better: Freshman Tyler Spriggs is also developing as a force. The daughter of five-year NBA player Larry Spriggs already has 118 kills. With normal progression, Mau, Spriggs and 6-foot 7-inch sophomore McKenzie Jacobson should become a formidable front wall.

And with another strong recruiting class, the Wildcats are apt to survive the Pac-12’s scheduling fury well into the future.

The Wildcats were unsuccessful in getting Tucson High’s 6-4 Mia Sokolowski, a Top 50 recruit who says she will play at Florida. But Rubio moved on and got a commitment from 6-3 Shardonee Hayes, the top prep volleyball player in Georgia.

Now Stanford comes barreling down the road. Big Trouble. The Cardinal has not been ranked outside the Top 10 in any of its last 21 games against Arizona.

Rubio knows the drill.