Cougars likely gone after home stand

PROVO — With two weeks remaining in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball play, BYU plays host to UC San Diego this weekend in the Cougars' regular-season home finale matches — and possibly the Cougars' final appearances at the Smith Fieldhouse this season.

BYU (16-9 overall, 11-7 MPSF) faces the UC San Diego Tritons (2-20, 1-17 MPSF) Friday and Saturday nights at 7. UCSD won its first league match last month by upsetting then-No. 15 Southern California.

Coming off a split of two matches last weekend at Cal State Northridge, the Cougars not only didn't break into the top four in the Mountain Pacific standings, they actually dropped into a tie for fifth with late-surging Long Beach State, which upset then No. 1 Pepperdine earlier in the week and then downed Southern California to improve to 17-8 overall and an identical 11-7 MPSF mark.

BYU didn't just drop in the standings but in the national poll as well. Ranked No. 4 last week, the Cougars fell to No. 7 in the latest USA Today/CSTV Top 15 poll. The top six, in order, are UCLA, Pepperdine, Penn State, Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara and Hawaii.

Pepperdine (18-2, 18-2) and UCLA (15-3, 22-3) continue to run away atop the MPSF standings, while UC Santa Barbara (14-10, 12-6) and Hawaii (16-7, 12-6) split their two weekend matches in Honolulu to remain tied for third.

The top eight teams in the 12-team Mountain Pacific advance to the league tournament, with the top four hosting the first-round quarterfinal matches on their home courts. The highest-seeded semifinalist then serves as host for the MPSF semis and finals, with the tournament champion earning the automatic berth to the NCAA Final Four.

With two weeks to play, the Cougars can reach coach Tom Peterson's goal of finishing third, thus avoiding the tournament host in the semifinals. But BYU can also fail not only to finish third but fourth as well, meaning it would open tournament play on the road.

That would be a far cry from last season, when the nationally top-ranked and MPSF top-seeded Cougars hosted both a opening-round quarterfinal and the league semifinals and finales, winning out and advancing to the NCAA Final Four. BYU then won its third national championship since 1999.

After the weekend home series against the Tritons, BYU finishes the regular season on the road at Stanford (10-11, 9-10), with the Cardinal currently in seventh place in the MPSF standings.

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