California State University at Northridge
UC Santa Barbara
CSUN Opens Outrigger Big West Championship Thursday vs. UC Santa Barbara
4/19/2022 4:09:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
2022 OUTRIGGER BIG WEST CHAMPIONSHIP:
MATCH #1Â (SEASON MATCHÂ #22)
No. 6 Seed CSUN (6-15, 1-9 Big West) vs. No. 3 Seed UC Santa Barbara (18-8, 6-4 Big West)
Thursday, Apr. 21, 2022Â - 10:00Â p.m. PDT (7:00Â p.m. local time)
SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center - Honolulu, O'ahu
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
FORÂ STARTERS
The CSUN Men's Volleyball team (6-15, 1-9 Big West) is the No. 6 seed in this week's Outrigger Big West Men's Volleyball Championship and will open the tournament Thursday against No. 3 seed UC Santa Barbara (18-8, 6-4 Big West) at 10 p.m. PDT. The winner of Thursday's first round match will advance to Friday's Semifinal round where No. 2 seed Hawai'i awaits.
Thursday's other first round match features No. 3 seed UC San Diego taking No. 5 seed UC Irvine which precedes the CSUN/UCSB match at 7:30 p.m. PDT. No. 2 seed Long Beach State will meet the winner of the UCSD/UCI match in the first Semifinal match on Friday at 7:30 p.m. PDT.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
All matches at the 2022 Outrigger Men's Volleyball Championship at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center will be streamed live by Spectrum Sports via ESPN+. Fans can also follow CSUN Matador men's volleyball on-line at the official home of CSUN athletics, www.GoMatadors.com for related links to the match, including for any live stats, audio and video.
Fans are also encouraged to check the CSUN Athletics Department's official Twitter feed (@GoMatadors) and the volleyball-specific feed (@CSUNMensVB) for news and notes throughout the week as well as updates of matches in progress.
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
UC Santa Barbara (18-8, 6-4 Big West) closed out its 2022 regular season with a 3-1 road win over No. 9 UC San Diego on Saturday (25-21, 17-25, 25-22, 25-14). Sophomore Dayne Chalmers and Ryan Wilcox each had 13 kills to lead the Gauchos while Donovan Todorov added eight blocks and seven kills. For the season, Wilcox leads UCSB averaging 3.50 kills per set while Haotian Xia adds 3.06 kps. Wilcox ranks fourth in the Big West in kills per set, just ahead of CSUN's Kyle Hobus at 3.47. As a team, the Gauchos are hitting .297 and rank second in the conference in digs per set at 9.03.
All-Time Series vs. UCSB: Thursday's first round match will be the 104th meeting all-time between the Matadors and UC Santa Barbara. The Gauchos won both meetings this season (3-0 at CSUN, 3-0 at UCSB) and now hold a 61-42 lead in the series that dates back to 1978.
Tournament History vs. UCSB: The Matadors and Gauchos have met twice previously in three Big West Tournaments dating back to the inaugural event in 2018. CSUN defeated UCSB in four sets at the Walter Pyramid in Long Beach in 2018 before the Gauchos won in five sets at the Stan Sheriff Center in Hawai'i in 2019. The Matadors also knocked off UCSB in the 1992 WIVA Tournament at UC Irvine, winning in straight sets in a Quarterfinal match.
NVA/AVCAÂ TOP-15 NATIONAL COACHES POLL - APR. 18
After earning votes in three straight NVA/AVCA Top-15 Coaches polls (Feb. 29-Mar. 14), CSUN (6-15) earned four points in the latest poll released Apr. 18. The Matadors received a season-high 12 points in the 2022 preseason poll before receiving nine points in week one (Jan. 10), seven points in week two (Jan. 17), six points in week eight (Feb. 28) and three points in consecutive weeks (Mar. 7, 14). CSUN was last ranked among the top-15 on Jan. 13, 2020 when the Matadors were 13th in the 2020 preseason coaches poll. Prior to that, CSUN had been ranked in the AVCA Top-15 for 62 consecutive weeks and 262 of the last 289 weekly polls dating back to the 2002 season.
UCLA remained number one for the ninth straight week as the Bruins (21-3) earned 17 of 19 first-place votes and 283 total points. Penn State (23-3) remained second this week, earning one first-place vote followed in the top-five by Long Beach State (19-4, one first-place vote), Hawai'i (22-5) and USC (21-6). UC Santa Barbara (18-8) remained sixth this week followed in the top-10 by Ball State (21-3), Pepperdine (16-9), UC San Diego (13-10) and Grand Canyon (16-11). The remainder of this week's top-15 includes Loyola-Chicago (18-8), Lewis (16-11), Stanford (12-13), UC Irvine (11-14) and Purdue Fort Wayne (16-12).
CSUN BIG WEST TOURNAMENT NOTES
Thursday's Outrigger Big West Championship opener against UC Santa Barbara marks the Matadors' 21st appearance in a postseason conference tournament since 1990. The No. 5 seed in the most recent Big West Tournament in Hawai'i in 2021, CSUN dropped a four-set decision to No. 4 seed UC San Diego in the first round at SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.
The Matadors' most recent win in the conference tournament came over UC Santa Barbara (3-1) in the first round of the 2018 Big West Tournament at Long Beach State's Walter Pyramid. The victory over the Gauchos in 2019 was CSUN's first postseason victory since defeating BYU in the semifinals of the 2010 MPSF Tournament at Stanford.
The Matadors were regular participants in the MPSF Tournament, earning a spot in the postseason each and every season from 2002-2010. In all, CSUN has now qualified for the postseason tournament 21 times since 1990. The Matadors are 8-13 all-time in conference tournament matches under head coach Jeff Campbell. CSUN has reached the conference tournament championship match three times, most recently the MPSF Tournament Championship in 2010.
MATADOR NOTES
Since hitting .167 in a three-set loss at Hawai'i on Mar. 26, Daniel Wetter has hit .474 or better in five of his last six matches. Wetter, hitting .465 for the season, has put together a remarkable run over the past two weeks. In four matches against UC Irvine and Long Beach State, the redshirt junior from Camarillo, put down 55 kills with just three hitting errors on 83 swings, a .627 hitting clip. He put down a season-high 16 kills on 24 errorless swings at Long Beach State on Friday two matches after knocking down 13 kills on 19 errorless attacks in the series opener against UC Irvine. Wetter passed both the 600 career kill and 200 career block milestones last week ... With 44 kills in two matches last week, Kyle Hobus has moved up to fifth in the Big West averaging 3.47 kills per set ... With 28 aces this season, Griffin Walters has the most by a Matador since Dimitar Kalchev capped his CSUN career with 48 aces in 2019 ... Donovan Constable has a team-high 630 assists in 21 matches this season which is the most by a CSUN freshman since Taylor Ittner posted 992 as a freshman in 2019. Constable, who has made 20 starts in his debut season, ranks fifth among Big West setters (20th nationally) averaging 9.55 assists per set ... 14 of the Matadors' 15 losses this season have come to teams ranked in the NVA/AVCA Top-15 poll, while their 15th came against NJIT which was the top team in the "Others receiving votes" in the national poll.Â
CAMPBELL PICKS UP 325TH CAREER WIN
CSUN's 3-0 win over Cal Lutheran on Jan. 28 was the 325th career win for CSUN head coach Jeff Campbell. In his 25th season at the helm of the program, Campbell now boasts a career record of 330-349 and has been the most successful coach at CSUN over the past 17 years. Campbell has posted 279 wins (nearly 14 wins per season) since the 2003 season which is quite an accomplishment considering the Matadors have annually played in the toughest men's volleyball conference in the country. Now in his 25th season, he is the all-time winningest coach in CSUN men's volleyball history with 330 career victories. Campbell become the program's all-time winningest coach during the 2010 season, reaching the 150, 200, 225 and 250 career win milestones over the last 10 seasons. Currently the second-longest tenured head coach at CSUN (men's golf coach Jim Bracken is in his 36th season), Campbell has earned double-figure win totals in 20 of his previous 24 seasons on the bench, posting a career-best 24 wins in 2009.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
The 2022 season marks CSUN's fifth as a member of the Big West Conference in men's volleyball. Since the conference's inaugural season in 2018, the Matadors are 11-29 (.275) in 40 Big West matches. CSUN finished 5-5 in the inaugural Big West season in 2018 before finishing 3-7 in 2019 and 2-8 in 2021. The 2020 conference season was not contested due to COVID-19. The Matadors reached the semifinals of the Big West Tournament in 2018 in Long Beach before falling in both the 2019 and 2021 quarterfinals in Hawai'i. Prior to 2018, CSUN played 25 seasons as a member of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) from 1993-2017 and 16 seasons in the Western Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (WIVA) from 1977-92.
LOOKING AHEAD
The winners of Thursday's first round matches will move on to the semifinal round where the winner of the CSUN/UCSB match will meet Hawai'i while the winner of the UCI/UCSD match will take on Long Beach State.
#UniteTheValley
