The No. 7-ranked BYU men’s volleyball team has remained inside the top 10 all season, climbing as high as No. 6 and ultimately going 5-4 against ranked opponents. But despite the Cougars’ winning record against those squads, they have yet to beat a school ranked ahead of them, all four of their setbacks coming in matches against such teams.
Still, BYU will have plenty of opportunities to get a marquee win down the stretch of the season, with some of the nation’s top squads left on its schedule. And despite their struggles to beat a team ranked inside the top five, the Cougars have already padded their résumé with some high-quality victories.
BYU played four of its first six matches against teams ranked inside the top 10 at the time, earning two wins over No. 10 UC San Diego a weekend before facing No. 5 UC Irvine.
“We played good volleyball,” BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said after his team earned a sweep against the Tritons in its first ranked matchup of the season. “But we’re going to have moments where we don’t. … We’re going to need to be able to find a way out of that and kind of recover. … So we look forward to those moments and we got to have them and embrace them.”
The Cougars found themselves in such a situation the next weekend in two five-set losses at home to UC Irvine before reeling off 27 straight triumphant sets. That win streak included road sweeps over then-No. 20 Lincoln Memorial and No. 15 UC Santa Barbara, BYU’s confidence growing with each victory.
“It was a great first road trip for the team,” Olmstead said after his team beat the Gauchos on consecutive nights. “(I’m) very proud of (our) toughness and consistency over the course of (those) two matches.”
Despite the long winning streak, marking the most straight sets the Cougars had won since 2016, BYU again found itself in another challenging situation when it faced No. 3 Hawaii on the road. In its final matches of February, the school saw its nine-match win streak snapped and ultimately flipped into consecutive losses by the Rainbow Warriors in what again resulted in defeats to a top-five team.
Last week, the Provo school recovered after its losses to Hawaii with two straight road victories against unranked MPSF foes, starting with UC Merced followed by Jessup.
As BYU nears the meat of its MPSF schedule, the Cougars will have to grow accustomed to facing ranked opponents with multiple still left on the schedule. BYU takes on No. 18 Stanford this weekend in a couple of road matches before getting its crack at a handful of top-10 opponents thereafter.
The Cougars will face No. 6 Pepperdine later this month and finish their last four contests split in pairs between No. 5 USC and followed by No. 1 UCLA.
“We finish up with a big one,” Olmstead said on the “Y’s Guys” livestream show earlier this year. “I love that we get to finish with them. I love that we get to go out there and be on that floor. … It’s going to give us a good idea of where we’re at and where we need to be.”
BYU has had a few of those opportunities to test its mettle and see where it stacks up among some of the nation’s best. So far, the Cougars have shown glimpses of their potential but have not been able to pull off an upset.
BYU’s last victory over a team ranked ahead of it came at the tail end of last season when the school beat No. 7 Pepperdine two consecutive evenings in the Smith Fieldhouse.
Though a signature win has eluded the Cougars so far this season, they have a few more opportunities right around the corner to capture the same magic they had against the Waves last April.
BYU will be looking to make the most of those chances as they come, but will be gearing up for an important stretch of its season beginning with Stanford Friday at 7 p.m. followed by a second meeting with the Cardinal Saturday at 6 p.m.
