BYU men's volleyball team vying for berth in NCAA Final Four

PROVO — While the table is set for the eight-team Mountain Pacific Sports Federation men's volleyball tournament, BYU will have to wait a little longer before knowing exactly who its weekend guest will be.

Concluding the regular season as the nation's No. 2 team and finishing second in the MPSF standings, the Cougars (18-4) earned the right to host an opening-round match Saturday at the Smith Fieldhouse.

The tournament winner not only claims the championship but also the league's much-coveted automatic berth in the NCAA Final Four, scheduled for May 3-5 in Columbus, Ohio. Two other automatic berths go to two other collegiate conferences, and the fourth spot — an "at-large" berth — almost always is afforded to a Mountain Pacific team.

With MPSF regular-season champion and top-ranked Pepperdine (25-1) boasting the nation's best record and an impressive 22-match win streak, the Waves seem to be a cinch to advance to the Final Four — either as tournament champions or as the at-large selection if Pepperdine suffers a semifinal upset at the hands of either UC Santa Barbara or UCLA.

Besides winning the tournament crown and the automatic berth, the Cougars' best hope for claiming the NCAA's at-large invitation is to win through the semifinals — with UC Irvine the likely semifinal foe — and then meet Pepperdine in the finals.

BYU's Final Four hopes are all but dashed if the Cougars stumble either in the opening round or semifinal matches or if it loses in the championship match to the likes of UCSB or UCLA.

With Pepperdine earning a first-round bye as well as the advantage of hosting the MPSF semifinals and finals, the Cougars are scheduled to meet the winner of Wednesday's play-in match between seventh-seeded Cal State Northridge (17-4) and eighth-seeded Southern California (12-15).

Northridge finished tied for sixth with Hawaii, but the tiebreaker dropped the Matadors to the No. 7 seed. CSUN won this year's two-match regular-season series against USC.

In the other tournament pairings for Saturday's opening round, defending champion and fifth-seeded UCLA (19-10) rides a late-season surge to visit No. 4 UC Santa Barbara (19-11), a team that dropped three of four regular-season matches to the Bruins in 2007, while No. 6 Hawaii (13-13) takes its 10-match winning streak on the road to third-seeded UC Irvine (24-5), which swept the Warriors in two three-game matches earlier this season.