After three and a half months of play, often with two matches a week, the Washington volleyball team has finally reached the part of the season it has been preparing for all along.

The NCAA Tournament starts Thursday, and the UW hopes to return to the Final Four to defend its national title in Omaha, Neb., three weeks from now. Before it can go to Omaha, though, it will have to make it through four rounds of play where losing any match can send the team home.

The Huskies (25-4, 15-3 Pac-10) have made the tournament each of the past four years.

The NCAA announced the tournament bracket yesterday. The committee gave the Huskies the No. 6 seed for the tournament, and the team will play on the road for the first and second rounds.

The team will travel to Boulder, Colo., this week where it will face Colorado State in the first round.

“Colorado State is a good team,” said coach Jim McLaughlin. “They’re a good program, they’ve got good history. They’ve got a good coach. They have good players. So we’ll be prepared for them for sure.”

The Rams (20-9) earned their 12th-consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament by upsetting No. 9 Utah in five sets to win the Mountain West Conference championship.

With a win in the first round, Washington will either face New Mexico State or Colorado in the second.

Playing on the road might set the UW up to get stung, since the matches will take place on the court where Colorado upset No. 1 Nebraska just a few weeks ago.

“I’ve been in that hornet’s nest a lot when I coached in the Big- 12, and it’s a good place to play,” McLaughlin said. “We’ve been in some hornet’s nest, like big hornets, in the Pac-10, so we’re kind of used to hornets. We’re kind of used to that stuff, so we’ll go in there and play the way we play.”

With the start of post-season play, McLaughlin said the approach to the games will not be any different than the rest of the year.

“The only difference is that you’re out if you lose,” McLaughlin said. “We keep our routines the same, our behaviors the same, and we enjoy the thing. We’re going to have fun in it; it’s a reward. Then you gotta get hot, and we got hot last year. You get hot and you just ride the thing, you go and you don’t look back.”

The Pac-10 conference named junior Christal Morrison Pac-10 Player of the Year. She follows former teammate Sanja Tomasevic. who received the award last year.

“I’m happy, I’m excited, I feel a little bit of everything,” Morrison said. “There are so many great players in the Pac-10. It’s a surprise but it’s an honor. I’m just excited to go play in the tournament now.”

While it’s cold in Seattle, the Huskies will be trying to bring the heat to Boulder. If they make it through the first and second rounds, they will return to Hec Edmundson Pavilion to play for a chance at the Final Four.

Reporter James Schleicher: jamesschleicher@thedaily.washington.edu