Penn State women's volleyball coach Russ Rose has this theory that goes something like, "It doesn't matter who you play, it matters how you play."

The statement is just 11 words and 43 letters, an apostrophe and a comma, a period and four pronouns. But in between those sets of quotation marks is a simple, yet powerful, statement.

Rose doesn't want his Nittany Lions to worry about their opponent or their track record against that opponent. He wants them to be concerned with how they're playing and what they can do to improve.

Obviously, Rose's mantra has been a highly successful one. Penn State, ranked No. 2 in the country with a 33-1 record, will leave Tuesday for the Final Four in Spokane, Wash., after sweeping first Ohio State and then BYU to win the Eastern regional during the weekend.

"This is what you want to experience," said Rose, whose career record in 19 seasons at Penn State stands at 619-118 -- good for an amazing .840 winning percentage. "A lot of time the team doesn't like what I'm doing or what I'm saying. Coaches try to get the players to understand this is what it's all about. Someone has to keep pointing to what's available and what we're working toward."

What the Nittany Lions are working toward is their first-ever national title. They are two wins from achieving that goal, and it seems anything less than capturing the NCAA crown will be a disappointment.

"It would be," junior Christy Cochran said. "Anything less than winning a national championship is not reaching our goal."

This is the third Penn State team Rose is taking to a Final Four. The 1993 squad lost in the finals to Long Beach State, while the 1994 edition fell to UCLA in the semifinals.

The 1997 Nittany Lions will play Florida on Thursday in one of the national semifinals, with Stanford and Long Beach State meeting in the other. The winners then compete Saturday for the national title.

Penn State's players, it sounded, would have liked to play Wisconsin at the Final Four -- since the Badgers handed the Nittany Lions their only loss of the season and a little revenge would've been sweet. But Florida, after losing the first two games to the Badgers, rebounded to win the match and set up a date with Penn State.

But the Nittany Lions know, as Rose likes to say, "It doesn't matter who you play, it matters how you play."