Sighs of relief on two counts from the Chico State volleyball team's point of view on Monday: 1) The NCAA announced the Wildcats have made the Division II tournament and 2) they'll go as the No. 7 seed and face No. 2 Western Washington. It won't be easy any time you take on a team that went 21-4, won its conference (Great Northwest Athletic Conference) and earned an automatic tourney berth, but a No. 8 seed would have meant Chico State got big, bad No. 1 regional host Cal State San Bernardino, which has lost a grand total of 10 games all year, including zero to the Wildcats.

You may recall that, at one point this season, Chico State was sitting pretty at No. 2 in the California Collegiate Athletic Assocation and No. 4 in the Pacific Region. Then, the Wildcats lost six of their last seven conference matchups, including some inexplicable drops to Cal State Monterey Bay and Sonoma State, all the while juggling a patchwork rotation without the services of four suspended players.

Meanwhile, Cal Poly Pomona -- the No. 4 seed in the Pacific and team that Chico State would have faced had it held its level of play -- enters the tournament as one of the hottest teams in the region; its only losses all year have come at the hands of teams in the top five seeds. The Broncos pretty much displaced the Wildcats by beating the teams they should have while Chico State, uh, didn't.

Upset talk is fun, and there will undoubtedly be a few in this year's tournament, but the realist in me acknowledges that Chico State's last win over a higher-ranked team was Sept. 14 over UC San Diego; its last win or any sort came over 1-17 Cal State Dominguez Hills on Oct. 26. So I'll fill out a bracket, of course, but if I'm choosing upsets, I'm penciling in sneaky-good Cal State L.A. or those momentous Broncos. Until they play the host Coyotes, naturally, who will win that region.