SEATTLE - The Washington Huskies got an early start on playing at another level.

The Huskies flew to Albuquerque, N.M., the site of their regional semifinal against Louisville, on Monday to get accustomed to the city's 5,314-foot altitude. The team normally would have left campus a day later to prepare for Thursday's game, but coach Lorenzo Romar wanted his players to build up their endurance.

"When you first hit the altitude, you run up and down the floor three, four times and you feel like you're exhausted and you can't catch your breath," Romar said before the team left. "Some are just able to play through it, no big deal. Then, some others, it just affects a little more."

The top-seeded Huskies (29-5) open the Albuquerque Regional against Louisville (31-4), while West Virginia (23-10) takes on Texas Tech (22-10) in the other matchup. The winners of each matchup will play for a trip to the Final Four.

Romar, who is visiting Albuquerque for the first time, said he's talked to a lot of coaches and former players about playing at The Pit at the University of New Mexico.

"I've been told if you're there two days, three days, then you become used to it and it doesn't affect you at all," Romar said.

Romar was more concerned about coach Rick Pitino's Louisville team and its star player, 6-foot-7 junior forward Francisco Garcia. The Cardinals won the Conference USA regular-season and tournament titles.

"Coach Pitino knows exactly what he wants," Romar said. "If anything his team is doing from the first day of practice or recruiting that doesn't reflect that, he fixes it quickly. He knows how to win ballgames."

But in the 2001-2002 season, Pitino's first at Louisville, Romar's Saint Louis teams were 2-0 against Pitino's teams. In three seasons at Saint Louis, Romar went 5-1 against the Cardinals.

While Louisville has Garcia, the Huskies rely heavily on their 5-foot-9 junior guard, Nate Robinson, a starting cornerback on the Washington football team as a freshman. Against Pacific in the second round of the NCAA tournament, Robinson scored 18 of his 23 points in the second half.

"Nate's been playing good basketball all year," Romar said. "You watched him enough to know the bigger the game, the bigger the event, the bigger he gets. And there's a lot at stake here."

Robinson has said he'll make a decision about his future at Washington after the season. He may pass up his senior season and enter the NBA draft. Right now, he's concentrating on trying to win an NCAA title.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he said. "It's an opportunity for us to go as far as we possibly can. We're trying to get to the Elite Eight, the Final Four, the Final Two and hopefully win the national championship."

While Washington beat Pacific by 18 points, Louisville won by 22 against Georgia Tech in the second round.

The Huskies are a quick, talented team that lacks size, but the similarly athletic Cardinals are a mirror image of Washington - with no starter taller than 6-foot-8.

"You can get 9 foot tall, but who's going to get there first?" Romar said. "I think our quickness allows us to get there. But Louisville negates that quickness a little bit because they have the same advantage that we have."