The calendar is on the wall in the University of Wisconsin volleyball team's locker room to remind the Badgers just how precious the remaining time is.

If the calendar doesn't convince the Badgers of that, the Big Ten Conference standings should.

For the first time in Pete Waite's 10 seasons as UW coach, the sixth-place Badgers (16-10 overall, 6-8 Big Ten) are in jeopardy of not finishing in the upper half of the conference, a slot that all but guarantees them a spot in the 64-team field for next month's NCAA tournament.

And for the first time, Waite and his three seniors, none of whom have missed a NCAA bid in their careers at UW, are starting to wonder if their streaks will remain intact.

"I'm not accustomed to being in that situation," Waite admitted, "but we're probably a bubble team right now, and we need to get a few wins down the stretch."

That stretch of six remaining games begins tonight at the UW Field House when the Badgers play host to No. 15 Minnesota, wich is tied for second in the league with Illinois at 10-4.

The weekend concludes Sunday against Iowa (13-13, 5-9), which surprisingly swept the Badgers in the first conference match of the season — one that offered a glimpse of the up-and-down season UW has gone through.

The Badgers have lost more conference matches this season than any other season under Waite. They had never finished worse than 13-7 in the Big Ten, a record that gave them fourth place in 2003 and '04.

"It is really weird to think that we have no idea what our future is," senior front row player Morgan Salow said.

Like fellow seniors Audra Jeffers and Faye McCormack, Salow has experienced nothing but conference and postseason success with the Badgers.

In her first three years, the Badgers have always advanced past the first round of the NCAA tournament, reached the national quarterfinals in 2005 and the final 16 in 2006.

Now, instead of wondering where they might be seeded and whether they will get homecourt advantage in the early rounds, the Badgers are thinking they have to pull off some upsets against Minnesota, No. 1 Penn State, No. 17 Illinois and No. 18 Purdue in this final stretch just to get a call from the NCAA.

"It's frustrating," Salow said of the season, "but it's almost a good thing for us, too, to get us to work harder. It has us thinking our next match, our next point, that we're going to have to give it our best effort."

That's why Waite put up that calendar in the locker room last week, a daily reminder that there is only so much time left to accomplish something this season.

"We need everything you have on every day to have the shot at being the best we can be," Waite said of the message behind the calendar.

"I think about it a lot," Salow said. "The calendar counts down the days to give us the reality of it."

The reality is simple, too.

"Make the NCAA," Salow said. "We want to win out. We want to play hard. We want to get as high up in the Big Ten as we can and see where that takes us."