Quickly switched after the victory over Bradley to the BYU match. Watched Loyola pull out a great four set win over a heavily favored BYU team. The end of the final set had me on the edge of my chair! What a great night for the Ramblers!

I did see the end of the match as well and boy I was not disappointed watching them pull that out!

I think the West Coast TEAMS and a lot of their core fans have gotten the message that there are some really strong programs east of the Rockies, hence the trips to play on the road in the Midwest and East by UCLA, Pepperdine, UCSB, Stanford, and the one team that always seemed to understand the issue, BYU. I like that the MIVA web site has a banner that says, "Home of the 2011, 2014, 2015, and 2016 National Champions."

But the polls--- especially the preseason polls--- are still skewed West. UC Irvine finished last season at 10-20, but the West Coast guys have them at #7, right behind Lewis. Mighty Pepperdine, picked #5 nationally preseason, looked shaky beating McKendree at their Malibu home last week, eking out a 3-2 win over the team picked to finish 5th in the MIVA after dropping the first two sets.

Lewis, ranked #6 and picked to finish 2nd in the MIVA, lost to #3 BYU at home, and struggled a bit last night with NJIT, needing extra games in a fourth set to beat them. Top-ranked Ohio State beat #2 UCLA last night, 3-1. That says to me that UCLA is just a half step behind OSU, but there's a considerable gap between #2 and #3. It'll be interesting to see what happens with #11 Loyola in the polls after a win over BYU and a loss to UCLA-- based on the first three games, I think I'd have Loyola several spots up, closer to Lewis, if not ahead. UCLA is clearly much better than Loyola right now. They wiped the floor with us. BYU was a struggle, and they would probably beat us in Provo, where they have a huge home court advantage (fans, altitude).

The match against Pepperdine next weekend, and how Pepperdine does against Lewis the next night, will tell us a lot more about where we are in the men's volleyball pecking order. But as of right now, I'd say were in that bunched up group of BYU, Lewis, Long Beach State, Hawaii, and MAYBE UC Irvine and Pepperdine, a considerable gap behind Ohio State and UCLA at the top.

Loyola played very well Saturday. I didn't get there till the 3rd set but from what I saw, the Serve Receive was very crisp and Loyola was getting digs. Offensively, 4 players in double-figure kills and none of them name Jendryk who had 8. This distribution from freshman setter Ian Cowen came about after a shoulder injury to Ricky Gevis very early in the match. As I walked into the lobby of the ticket office, I looked up at the big screen of small screen tvs and saw Ricky in a sling. I think I cursed out loud. Ben Plaisted played well coming in for Ricky. Ben was only 4 blocks away from a rare men's game triple-double gathering 12 kills and 11 digs. Ben and Ricky have unfortunately been a part of a revolving door at their position due to multiple injuries for each player. We're glad to have both of them. Hopefully Ricky's injury is minor.

Sophomore middle Paul Narup had looked consistently good in the middle so far. If Loyola can keep the passing solid, Narup will play a big part offensively. Will Tischler and Colin Mahan are the keys this season. Both players played well against BYU. Loyola used two liberos in the matches I saw (UCLA and BYU) where Selsky played on serve and Aylesworth played on serve receive.

Loyola just looked a step slow back on Tuesday against UCLA so this win along with the win Thursday night against NJIT is a big turnaround.