BYU gamers have a good time a degree throughout a match towards UC Santa Barbara on the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo on Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. The red-hot Cougars open MPSF tourney play as we speak towards Concordia at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion. Ryan Solar, Deseret Information
The BYU Cougars bench celebrates after a profitable second throughout a match on the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo on March 10, 2023. Ryan Solar, Deseret Information
BYU males’s volleyball coach Shawn Olmstead all the time begins a season with the tip in thoughts, hoping to get his group enjoying to its full potential as soon as the schedule nears its completion. That’s proper the place the top coach has his troops heading into this week’s MPSF event.
“We’ve been residence and that’s an enormous benefit. We’ve communicated with these guys nonstop that in the long run you’ve acquired to have the ability to win matches on the street. That’s what all nice groups must do.” — BYU volleyball coach Shawn Olmstead
“I undoubtedly assume we're (enjoying our greatest) as you have a look at the season, the entire image,” Olmstead mentioned. “Our guys have achieved a very good job of doing that and performing that method.”
The Cougars enter postseason play on a roll, having gained eight straight matches. Six of these contests got here towards members of the MPSF. All eight victories, nonetheless, got here on the Smith Fieldhouse, making it unclear how BYU would possibly carry out as soon as it leaves its comfortable confines in Provo for the primary time for the reason that starting of March.
“We’ve been residence and that’s an enormous benefit,” Olmstead mentioned. “We’ve communicated with these guys nonstop that in the long run you’ve acquired to have the ability to win matches on the street. That’s what all nice groups must do.”
BYU will face last-place finisher Concordia within the first spherical of the MPSF event Wednesday at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion (4 p.m. MDT). The Golden Eagles are the one league foe that the Cougars defeated on the street this season. The faculties’ pair of matches have been gained by BYU, however in vastly totally different fashions. The primary night time noticed the Provo college take down Concordia with ease, incomes a sweep for its first convention victory and profitable each set by six or extra factors. The second contest went the space, with three of the 5 units requiring further factors to find out the winner.
“That’s a group that’s going to scrap,” Olmstead mentioned of Concordia. “I don’t assume you possibly can fully financial institution off the previous matches that we had. … They went to Grand Canyon and gained a match there. And that’s not simple. In order that they’re … an excellent group.”
Since Olmstead took over this system, the Cougars have but to go two full seasons with out an MPSF event title.
“That’s undoubtedly not one thing we’re discussing,” Olmstead mentioned of that precedent. “We’ve acquired an enormous activity forward of us.”
BYU will attempt to keep targeted on the tall order forward, competing in one of many nation’s hardest convention tournaments. The MPSF ended the common season with just one unranked squad. The Cougars will start event play ranked No. 6 nationally, the best of any MPSF college exterior of UCLA.
UCLA leers from the highest of the deep league, boasting an ideal 12-0 convention report and an eight-match win streak of its personal. The Bruins solely dropped a mixed three units in MPSF play, making them the overwhelming favorites to finish the week with the coveted championship trophy and automated bid to this 12 months’s NCAA event.
Nevertheless, BYU already beat the chances to earn the league’s second seed after being picked within the preseason to complete sixth, giving the group nice confidence because it heads into the convention event. The Cougars stay hopeful they'll shock once more.
BYU has the potential to overachieve in one other space as effectively. The college has a shot to go to the NCAA event in Could with an at-large bid even when it falls in need of profitable its ninth convention event title this week.
Seven faculties are invited to the NCAA’s postseason, two at-large together with 5 others incomes an automated bid after profitable their convention tournaments. The highest two seeds earn byes to the semifinals.
If previous precedent holds true, the Cougars merely should show themselves to be one of many two greatest squads within the MPSF, the league having obtained at the least two invites to the nationwide event yearly since 1995.
“I believe that will be past everybody’s expectations,” Olmstead mentioned of going to the NCAA event. “That will be fairly wonderful. … I do know that that’s type of (my gamers’) objective. I do know that that’s one thing that they wish to accomplish. However I additionally know the way extremely onerous that's. … We don’t wish to sit and dwell on it and speak again and again and over about it. However I discussed it (to my group).”
“We’ll simply attempt to do our greatest and compete as onerous as we will and see what occurs.”
The BYU Cougars bench celebrates after a profitable second throughout a match on the Smith Fieldhouse in Provo on March 10, 2023.
Ryan Solar, Deseret Information