California State University at Northridge
Stanford
#17 CSUN Heads to No. 4 Stanford for Friday-Saturday Matches
1/31/2024 12:56:00 PM | Men's Volleyball
MATCH #9
No. 17 CSUN Matadors (5-3) @ No. 4 Stanford Cardinal (6-0)
Friday, Feb. 2, 2024Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
Burnham Pavilion & Ford Center  - Stanford, Calif.
Stanford Live Stream
Live Stats
MATCH #10
No. 17Â CSUN Matadors @ No. 4 Stanford Cardinal
Saturday, Feb. 3, 2024Â - 5:00Â p.m. PT
Maples Pavilion - Stanford, Calif.
Pac-12 Network
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
Winners of four of its last five matches, the No. 17 CSUN Men's Volleyball team (5-3, 0-0 Big West) heads to Stanford this week for a pair of matches against the fourth-ranked Cardinal (6-0). CSUN and Stanford will meet Friday at 7 p.m. at Burnham Pavilion before closing the weekend inside Maples Pavilion Saturday at 5 p.m.
The Matadors are coming off a 2-0 week that saw them pick up a 3-2 win at No. 11 USC, CSUN's first win over a ranked team in 2024. The Matadors then picked up their fourth win in their last five matches by sweeping Central State (25-16, 25-17, 25-18) on Saturday in the first ever meeting between the two schools.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
Friday's match will be streamed on Stanford's live stream channel while Saturday's match will stream on Pac-12 Bay Area. Both matches will have live stats 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 MOVES UP TO 17TH IN FIFTH AVCA/NVA TOP-20 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
After upsetting No. 11 USC and sweeping Central State last week, the Matadors (5-3) moved up one spot to 17th in the fifth AVCA/NVA National Collegiate MVB Poll of the 2024 season. CSUN, which held the No. 18 spot for three straight weeks, earned season-high 117 points this week. The Matadors earned a previous season-high 102 points in week one (Jan. 3) to also rank a season-best 17th. Ranked in all five polls this season, the Matadors were ranked in the AVCA/NVA Top-15 poll for 10 straight weeks 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.
Long Beach State (7-0) took over as the top-ranked team this week after Ohio State held the top spot last week. The Beach earned all 23 first-place votes and 460 total points this week. Grand Canyon (6-0) moved up to second followed in the top five by Hawai'i (6-1), Stanford (6-0), and UCLA (6-2). Ohio State (6-2) dropped up to sixth, followed by UC Irvine (5-1), Penn State (6-2), BYU (7-3), and Pepperdine (6-1). The remainder of this week's top-20 includes Loyola-Chicago (5-5), USC (6-2), UC Santa Barbara (2-5), Lewis (5-3), Ball State (7-5), Princeton (4-1), the Matadors, George Mason (3-5), UC San Diego (2-6), and Lincoln Memorial (4-2).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
#4 Stanford (5-1) improved to 6-0 this season after topping No. 14 Ball State, 25-9, 21-25, 30-28, 25-18 last Saturday at the First Point Collegiate Challenge at the Austin Convention Center. Will Rottman, who leads Stanford averaging 4.04 kills per set, had 22 kills on .409 hitting against Ball State. As a team, Stanford is hitting .330 this season while limiting its opponents to a .215 hitting clip. The Cardinal have played just two home matches this season, opening 2024 with a pair of wins over No. 10 Loyola-Chicago on Jan 7-8.
All-Time Series: Friday's match is the 78th meeting all-time between the Matadors and Cardinal with Stanford holding a 44-33 edge in the series. The Matadors, who have won three straight in the series dating back to the 2022 season, are 11-22 all-time in matches at Stanford but have won two of their last three at Maples Pavilion. CSUN won in straight sets at Stanford last season and also claimed a 3-2 win in Northridge over the No. 6 Cardinal.
CSUN HITTING .370 OVER LAST FIVE MATCHES
The Matadors are hitting .370 as a team over their last five matches, connecting for 259 kills with just 79 hitting errors on 487 attacks. CSUN has improved its team hitting percentage to .331 on the season which ranks third in the Big West. Junior setter Donovan Constable has been an integral part of CSUN's hitting success as he continues to lead the Big West, averaging a career-best 10.07 assists per set. Constable had 48 assists in leading CSUN to a season-high .404 team hitting clip in a four-set win over Harvard on Jan. 12. Constable also had a season-high 55 assists against Princeton, coming within one assist of his career-high 56 he set against Stanford last season.Â
CSUN PICKS UP FIRST WIN OVER A RANKED TEAM Â
After opening the season by taking on four Top-20 teams in seven matches, CSUN picked up its first win over a ranked team at No. 11 USC on Wednesday. The Trojans were the fourth ranked team the Matadors have faced this season after opening the season against No. 7 Grand Canyon and No. 20 George Mason in Santa Barbara before falling in five tough sets to No. 16 Princeton at home on Jan. 19. CSUN will have two more chances this week as it takes on No. 4 Stanford. The Cardinal will be the highest ranked team CSUN has met since falling to No. 4 Long Beach State in the final month of the 2023 Big West season. In total, the Matadors are scheduled to play 15 teams this season that are currently ranked in this week's AVCA/NVA Top-20.
SEVEN-MATCH HOMESTAND ON THE HORIZON
CSUN's match against UC Merced on Feb. 7 marks the opening of a seven-match homestand for the Matadors. The seven-match homestand, which concludes Mar. 5 against Penn State, matches CSUN's 2023 team for the program's longest homestand since 2012. The Matadors finished 4-3 over the seven-match span last season. In 2012, the Matadors finished 5-4 on a nine-match homestand from Feb, 29-Mar. 24. The program record for consecutive home matches is 11 straight from Feb. 4-Mar. 17, 2004 when the Matadors finished 8-3. CSUN also had a seven-match homestand in 2009 (finished 6-1) and a trio of six-match homestands in 1980, 2003 and 2020.
QUICK SETS
Redshirt freshman Jalen Phillips has moved up to 11th in the nation in hitting percentage at .377. Phillips also ranks 27th in the nation in kills per set at 3.33 and 34th in points per set at 3.92 ... Senior Kyle Hobus, who passed 1,000 career points last week, now has a career season-high 17 aces in CSUN's first eight matches. Hobus' previous season-best was 16 aces in both 2022 and 2023. In addition to setting a season-high with 23 kills at No. 11 USC, Hobus had his highest kill total since also putting down 23 kills against Long Beach State in the 2022 regular season finale. Hobus' career-high in kills remains 29 which he set against Concordia Irvine in his second collegiate match as a redshirt freshman in 2020 ... Malcolm King served a career-high five aces in CSUN's 3-0 win over Central State and now has a career-high 12 aces this season ... Libero Taylan Cook scooped up a season-high nine digs against USC and is now tied for third on the team with Hobus with 23 digs. Griffin Walters leads CSUN with 26 digs, followed by Constable with 25 ... Senior Jano Tello had an impressive week with six kills on 10 errorless swings in two matches. Tello is now hitting .357 on the season which only trails fellow middle Malcolm King who is hitting .482.
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 in 2024 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).
LOOKING AHEAD
Following the two-match set at No. 4 Stanford, the Matadors return to Northridge to open up their longest homestand of the season on Feb. 7. CSUN, which hosts UC Merced to open the homestand, will remain at home for the better part of the next month as the Matadors will play seven straight matches inside Premier America Credit Union Arena.Â
#GoMatadors
