California State University at Northridge
Grand Canyon
17th-Ranked CSUN Opens 2024 Season Against a Pair of Ranked Teams
1/3/2024 1:49:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATADORS THIS WEEK - ASICS INVITATIONAL
MATCH #1
No. 7 Grand Canyon Lopes (0-0) vs. No. 17 CSUN Matadors (0-0)
Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024Â - 4:30Â p.m. PT
Robertson Gym - Goleta, Calif.
Live Stats
MATCH #2:
NJIT Highlanders vs. No. 17 CSUN Matadors
Friday, Jan. 5, 2024 - 7:00 p.m. PT
Robertson Gym - Goleta, Calif.
Live Stats
MATCH #3:
No. 20 George Mason Patriots vs. No. 17 CSUN Matadors
Saturday, Jan. 6, 2024 - 2:00 p.m. PT
Robertson Gym - Goleta, Calif.
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The 17th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (0-0, 0-0 Big West) opens the 2024 season, its 47th season of men's volleyball, against No. 7 Grand Canyon Thursday at the Asics Invitational in Santa Barbara. The match is the first of three for the Matadors at the annual tournament which will be held at Rob Gym on the UCSB campus week. CSUN opens the tournament Thursday against GCU at 4:30Â p.m., before taking on NJIT Friday at 7 p.m. The Matadors conclude the three-day event on Saturday, taking on No. 20 George Mason at 2 p.m. Fellow Big West teams UC San Diego and host UC Santa Barbara round out the six-team field this weekend.Â
ASICS Invitational Tournament Central
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
All nine matches of UCSB's Asics Invitational will feature live stats (links at GoMatadors.com). All Matador home matches this season will be streamed live on the ESPN+ platform with Darren Preston handling a majority of the play-by-play this season.
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.
CSUN RANKED 17TH IN INAUGURAL AVCA/NVA TOP-20 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
The Matadors open the 2024 season ranked 17th in the AVCA/NVA National Collegiate MVB Poll. The national poll was increased from a top-15 poll to a top-20 poll beginning with the 2024 season. CSUN earned a season-high 91 points last season to rank as high as 12th on Mar. 13. The Matadors were ranked in the top-15 for 10 straight polls last season (Feb. 6-Apr. 10). Prior to moving back into the top-15 poll for the first time since the 2020 season on Feb. 6 (No. 15), 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.Â
Defending national champions UCLA is the top-ranked team to open the 2024 season. The Bruins collected all 23 first-place votes and 460 total points to edge Long Beach State, Hawai'i, UC Irvine, and Ohio State in the top-five. Penn State is sixth, followed in the top-10 by Grand Canyon, Stanford, BYU and Loyola-Chicago. The remainder of this week's top-20 includes Ball State, USC, Pepperdine, Princeton, UC Santa Barbara, Lewis, the Matadors, Charleston, Lincoln Memorial, and George Mason.
SCOUTING THE ASICS INVITATIONAL FIELD
No. 7 Grand Canyon (0-0) opens the season ranked seventh and was picked to finish third in the MPSF Preseason Coaches' Poll. The Lopes are coming off a 22-8 (6-6 MPSF) season that culminated with their first-ever appearance in the NCAA tournament. Senior All-Americans Camden Gianni and Jackson Hickman return to anchor the GCU offense which also returns junior setter Nic Slight. All-Time Series: Thursday's match is just the third meeting all-time between the Matadors and Grand Canyon with the series tied at one win apiece. CSUN won the first meeting 2013 before the Lopes claimed the most recent meeting in five sets in Santa Barbara in 2019.
NJIT (0-0) was picked to finish fourth in the 2024 EIVA Preseason Coaches Poll after finishing 9-18 overall and 2-8 in conference last season. Griffin Fieseler, Alessandro Negri were listed on the EIVA Players to Watch list for the Highlanders. All-Time Series: Friday's match is the seventh meeting all-time between the Matadors and NJIT with CSUN claiming five of the previous six matches. The two teams met last season in New Jersey with the Matadors pulling out a 17-15 win in the fifth and deciding set.
No. 20 George Mason (0-0) opens the season ranked 20th after finishing 13-15 overall and 4-6 in the EIVA in 2023. Head coach Jay Hosack returns while 16 players from the 2023 season, headlined by senior Omar Hoyos who led the Patriots with 322 kills while averaging 4.18 points per set. All-Time Series: Saturday's match is the 15th meeting all-time between the Matadors and George Mason. CSUN is 9-5 in the all-time series which includes eight wins in Northridge. The Matadors claimed the most recent meeting the two teams in 2018, sweeping the Patriots at home.
CSUN AT THE UCSB ASICS INVITATIONAL
Thursday's match against Grand Canyon marks CSUN's 23rd appearance in UC Santa Barbara's annual tournament in the last 27 years. Last season, the Matadors finished 1-2 at the invitational, falling to No. 2 UCLA and No. 10 USC before sweeping Lincoln Memorial. CSUN was scheduled to open the 2022 season in Santa Barbara but due to COVID protocols within the program, the Matadors were forced to withdraw, snapping a streak of 16 consecutive appearances.
Prior to the tournament being canceled in 2021, CSUN also finished 1-2 in 2020 and 2-1 in 2019. In 2019, CSUN dropped a five-set decision to Grand Canyon which snapped a streak of 11 straight Matador wins in the tournament dating back to a loss to Princeton in 2015. CSUN won its first-ever UCSB tournament championship in 2009 after upsetting No. 2 UCLA (3-1) and defeating No. 14 UCSB (3-1) and No. 8 Stanford (3-1). The Matadors then won their second straight crown in 2010 topping UCSB (3-1), Cal Baptist (3-1) and BYU (3-1). All-time, the Matadors are 52-35 (.598) in UC Santa Barbara's annual tournament.
HOBUS NAMED PRESEASON ALL-BIG WEST TO HIGHLIGHT RETURNERSÂ
Redshirt senior Kyle Hobus was named to the Big West Preseason Coaches Team, earning a nod to the preseason team for the first time. Hobus joined Long Beach State's Mason Briggs, Aidan Knipe, and Sotiris Siapanis, Hawaii's Guilherme Voss and Spyros Chakas, and UC Irvine's Hilir Henno on the preseason team. Hobus averaged a CSUN-high 3.59 kills and 4.14 points per set in 2023 while earning a second-straight appearance on the All-Big West first team.
In addition to Hobus, 2023 All-Big West selections Griffin Walters and Malcolm King also return. Walters, an honorable mention selection, set season career-highs in virtually every statistical category in 2023. He finished second to Hobus in kills with while also ranking eighth in the Big West in aces, averaging 0.34 per set. King, named to the Big West All-Freshman Team last season, finished his first season with 40 kills on .270 hitting and was one of the leading blockers on the team with 41 in just 45 sets (0.91 bps) which ranked sixth among Big West players. Other key returners for CSUN in 2024 include Donovan Constable, a Big West All-Freshman Team pick in 2022, along with seniors Taylan Cook, Jackson Payne and Jano Tello, and junior Lorenzo Bertozzi. In total, CSUN returns 96.1% of its offensive output from last season as the returning core of players accounted for 1,062 of the Matadors' 1,126 kills in 2023.
MATADORS IN THE BIG WEST Â
2024 marks CSUN's seventh season as a member of the Big West in men's volleyball. After finishing 1-9 in 2023, the Matadors are now 12-38 (.240) in 50 Big West matches over six seasons since the conference's inaugural campaign in 2018. CSUN finished 5-5 in the first Big West season in 2018 before finishing 3-7 in 2019, 2-8 in 2021 and 1-9 in both 2022 and 2023. The 2020 conference season was not contested due to COVID-19. The Matadors reached the semifinals of the Big West Championship Tournament in 2018 in Long Beach before falling in the 2019, 2021 and 2022 quarterfinals in Hawai'i. CSUN fell to host UC Irvine in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Outrigger Big West Championship. Prior to 2018, the Matadors 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.
EDWARDS OPENS SECOND SEASON AS HEAD COACH
Theo Edwards opens his second season as CSUN's head coach after leading the Matadors back into the AVCA national rankings in his first season. Now in his 14th season at CSUN, Edwards was named the successor to Jeff Campbell on Dec. 9, 2022. CSUN finished 12-16 in Edwards' first season (1-9 in the Big West) as CSUN moved back into the national rankings for the first time in three seasons. The Matadors received a season-high 91 points to rank a season-high 12th on Mar. 13. CSUN was ranked in the top-15 for 10 straight polls in 2023 after moving back into the poll for the for the first time since the 2020 season on Feb. 6 (No. 15).
UP NEXT
Following three matches at the UCSB Asics Invitational, the Matadors return home to open the 2024 home season against Harvard next Friday (Jan. 12). The match against the Crimson opens a three-match homestand for CSUN which also includes visits from Cal Lutheran (Jan. 16) and Princeton (Jan. 19). The Matadors will play four of their five remaining matches in January at home, the only road match is Jan. 24 at USC.
#GoMatadors
