The UAA women might be the No. 4 seed in the West, but they won't be sneaking up on anybody.

Especially if Kiki Taylor returns to the lineup.

The two-time defending West Region champion open the NCAA Division II playoffs against fifth-seeded Cal Poly Pomona today at 4:30 p.m. at Seattle Pacific's Royal Brougham Pavilion.

"Right now I know that (Cal Poly coach) Scott Davis is looking at us as the defending West Region champions," UAA coach Tim Moser said. "We still have got a bull's-eye on our back. We are a team that no one really wants to play this time of year."

Taylor, a senior guard who missed the second half of the season with a broken foot, is expected to play at least limited minutes in the postseason. The team's aggressive, full-court defense relied heavily on Taylor's quickness early in the season and her ball-handling abilities have been missed against the pressure of opposing teams.

"She's definitely not 100 percent, but she looks good," Moser said. "I don't know what that translates into during a game situation. We are going to play her, how many minutes I don't know. We're going to get her in and out."

Before leaving for Seattle on Tuesday, Moser said the team had turned the intensity up a notch in practice, giving Taylor some minutes at game pace.

"The last two days we went after it like it was the beginning of the season," Moser said. "I'm impressed with how hard the kids came to practice."

With Taylor out of the lineup, senior guard Tamar Gruwell has been clutch, hitting crucial shots and holding the team together despite not putting up awe-inspiring statistics.

"She's the glue to our team," Moser said. "She's not the most talented, but she brings it every night. She really wants to win. She's really prepared and she steps it up in the big games."

• Cal Poly Pomona (22-6) was the California Collegiate Athletic Association runner-up in the regular season and in the conference tournament. The Broncos won the first Division II national title in 1982 and claimed four more titles (1985, '86, 2001 and '02) and three runner-up finishes (1983, '87 and '89), but had missed the postseason the past four seasons.

Pomona and UAA (23-4) have two common opponents this season. The Seawolves were 4-0 against Western Oregon and Northwest Nazarene, with both road wins coming in the final seconds and both home wins by double digits. Pomona beat Western Oregon 63-62 and lost at Northwest Nazarene 79-65 in a tournament.

"They are a very good basketball team, a lot more athletic than we are," Moser said. "We'll have our hands full. Even though we're 23-4 we've been up and down all year."

The Seawolves are 6-0 the past two postseasons on SPU's court, beating the top-seeded Falcons in the championship games in 2008 and 2009. They were the No. 3 seed in 2008 and the No. 2 seed last year. UAA had a chance to tie SPU for the conference crown Saturday, but lost 67-60 to the Falcons at the Wells Fargo Sports Complex in the last game of the regular season. A first-round win would likely set up a semifinal rematch against SPU.

"I don't think the kids are concerned about Seattle Pacific right now," Moser said. "We made it to the second season and now everybody is 0-0.

"A loss like that last one, hopefully it fires everybody up. We need to try to cover up some of the things that were exploited by SPU and it is a lot easier to teach those things after a loss."

The Seawolves offense has struggled at times this year, but the team's defense has been solid, with its biggest weakness being its tendency to lose track of 3-point shooters late in the opposing team's offensive sets. UAA held teams to 48.5 points a game in winning the West Region in 2008 and 48 points a game in winning the West in 2009.

"In my opinion the toughest team, the best defensive team is the one that is going to come out of the West," Moser said. "The other night SPU had the best defense. Their defense, rebounding and toughness won that game for them.

"Those are things that we can control and if we do that we have a chance. If we don't, we'll be back in Anchorage soon."