One hundred consecutive wins? No big deal.

How about three consecutive national titles? The only words the Penn State's women's volleyball team is interested in are "national" and "title" (singular).

Focusing on "three" and "consecutive" mean focusing on the past. Right now, the Nittany Lions are only focusing on the future.

(The Nittany Lions take on Hawaii at 9 p.m. today. The semi-final battle will be shown on ESPN2.)

They'll tell you straight up the history and streak mean very little to them right now. And I believe them.

It’s been a crazy couple of years at University Park, with Penn State perhaps temporarily giving up the “Linebacker U” moniker in favor of “Volleyball U.”

Winning seems to be almost a foregone conclusion for this team. Fans and members of the press alike go to Rec Hall on Friday and Saturday nights expecting to spend no longer than an hour and a half watching the Nittany Lions sweep through yet another overmatched opponent.

It’s been more than two years since Penn State last suffered a loss in women’s volleyball. That came on Sept. 15, 2007 to Stanford. Since then, it’s been a lot of sweeps and only a few close calls.

Only one other NCAA sports team has ever won 100 consecutive games, matches, whatever, and that was back in the late 1950s and early '60s, when the Miami men’s tennis team won 137 straight matches.

No women’s volleyball squad has ever won three straight NCAA Titles. Two more wins, and Penn State makes a little more history, in that regard.

How about Coach Russ Rose? The man who wrote his thesis on volleyball statistics is just one win away from 1,000 wins for his career (although it would’ve been nice if he had planned that out a little better, so that he could get the title and his 1,000th win on the same night).

Of course the media flock to the obvious storylines.

But guess what? The team doesn’t care. The coaching staff doesn’t care.

They might hear about it all the time, but it’s certainly not what they’re paying attention to.

“It’s hard to keep it out of their minds when every question asked is about 100 wins, the streak and what’s going on,” said assistant coach Dennis Hohenshelt. “So it’s not out of their minds, but to them the streak is of no value. They want to win a championship, and the championship has nothing to do with the streak.”

Streaks, records and milestones are certainly nice, but it’s not the ultimate goal.

And yes, that sounds like the generic “we’re not thinking about it” line that you’re going to get from a player or a coach, but if you actually talk to anyone on the staff or the team, you really become convinced that it isn’t just a line.

I did a story for ESPNU before the season began, focusing on the potential of the third straight title, and it was like pulling teeth trying to get Rose or any of the players, like Alisha Glass, to talk about it. And that’s not meant to be a knock on any of them. It’s just simply a reflection of how focused they are on the present.

Throughout all the time I spent with and around the team, including being on team planes, buses and eating with them on the road, I honestly never heard the streak being discussed one time. I never heard any mention of three straight titles.

It’s not that they don’t appreciate the history or have a grasp on what they accomplished. They just know that it isn’t over yet, there’s still more to accomplish, and if they lose that focus, they’ll fall short of what the goal is.

It isn’t to win three straight championships.

It’s to win the championship in 2009.