With the women finishing now come the men. Just fewer than 2 weeks remain until we unveil the 2017 season vs #2 UCLA at Gentile on Tuesday, January 3rd.

Loyola enters another rebuilding year with a young squad as Loyola looks to replace Peter Hutz, Nick Olsen, and Trevor Novotny. This will be a freshman and sophomore heavy squad led by Juniors Jeff Jendryk and Jake Selsky, and potentially senior Cole Murray. That said, Loyola has been picked 3rd in the conference this year behind Ohio State and Lewis. Lewis came on strong last year in a rebuilding year but they almost squeaked it out vs Ohio State in the MIVA Final. Ohio State brings back 6 of 7 starters and is a heavy favorite to repeat in the MIVA and NCAA.

I believe UCLA returns all of their starters (assuming they still start) and were upended by Ohio State 3-2 in the NCAA semis last year.

On a distant UCLA side note, I just attended the AVCA Convention where UCLA/USA Head Coach John Speraw was a speaker. There was a very touching moment as John was speaking about the men's national team and the way the final roster came together as a group. Long story short, in past Olympics, not may volleyball players attended the Closing Ceremony. John said only he, another coach, and 2 players attended and I can't remember whether it was 2008 when they won gold or 2012 when they finished 5th I believe. John got a text the day of the 2016 closing ceremony from the team and all 12 players were attending. I believe most if not all of the women's team attended too. Coming off two hard losses in the semis for both squads, they both earned bronze and all went to the closing ceremony. Speraw was trying to hold back tears but after a couple minutes the floodgates were open. He was near weeping as he made a fist and backhand punched a guy in the shoulder sitting in the aisle and just said "12 guys at the closing ceremony." We all started clapping.

I saw that we were picked third in the MIVA and 11th (!??!!) in the NCAA, but I haven't the chance to write anything because I've been REALLY busy with work projects, the holidays, men's basketball stuff, nuisance errands, and numerous time-sapping obligations.

My first thoughts are that we have a really fantastic schedule. UCLA, BYU, and Pepperdine... AT HOME? I'll take it!! Shows how the playing field has leveled a lot more across the conferences. Polls are still a little off, with the MPSF still getting the benefit of the doubt at every fork in the road. We have to win two of three of those big games against West Coast teams to be relevant nationally this year. The Lewis program continues to impress me with how strong it is, year after year, for the size of school they are, where they are, etc. It's kind of amazing.

I think we're going to need some players to make huge steps forward, and a couple newcomers come up big to compete this year.