California State University at Northridge
UC San Diego
No. 16 CSUN Opens Big West Season Thursday at #18 UC San Diego
3/14/2024 8:50:00 AM | Men's Volleyball
MATCH #18 (BIG WEST #1)
No. 16 CSUN Matadors (9-8, 0-0) @ No. 18 UC San Diego Tritons (9-10, 1-2)
Thursday, Mar. 14, 2024Â - 7:00Â p.m. PT
LionTree Arena - La Jolla, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
MATCH #19Â (BIG WEST #2)
No. 18 UC San Diego Tritons @Â No. 16 CSUN Matadors
Friday, Mar. 15, 2024Â - 6:00Â p.m. PT
Premier America Credit Union Arena - Northridge, Calif.
ESPN+
Live Stats
In-game Twitter updates:Â @CSUNMensVB
CSUN Men's Volleyball Media Notes
FORÂ STARTERS
The 16th-ranked CSUN Men's Volleyball team (9-8, 0-0 Big West) is set to open the 2024 Big West season this week as the Matadors take on No. 18 UC San Diego (9-10, 1-2 Big West) in a home-and-home series Thursday and Friday. CSUN will open the conference season Thursday against the Tritons at LionTree Arena at 7 p.m. before hosting UCSD at Premier America Credit Union Arena Friday at 6 p.m. CSUN completed the non-conference portion of the 2024 season with a 3-1 loss at home to No. 9 Penn State on Mar. 5.
FOLLOW YOUR MATADORS ONLINE
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 REMAINSÂ 16TH IN AVCA/NVA TOP-20 NATIONAL COACHES POLL
After falling in four sets to No. 9 Penn State in their most recent match (Mar. 5), the Matadors (9-8) remained 16th in this week's AVCA/NVA National Collegiate MVB Poll. CSUN, which has now been ranked 16th for six straight weeks, earned 107 points this week, down four points from last week. The Matadors, who received a season-high 149 points on Feb. 5, have been ranked in all 11 polls this season. CSUN was 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, 2023 (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
Hawai'i (17-1) reclaimed the top spot this week, earning 15 of 23 first-place votes. Long Beach State (16-1) picked up the other eight first-place votes and is second followed in the top five by UCLA (16-4), Grand Canyon (16-2), and UC Irvine (13-6). Stanford (9-9) moved back up to sixth this week, followed in the top 10 by BYU (11-7), Ohio State (15-5), Pepperdine (14-5), and Penn State (13-6). The remainder of this week's top-20 includes USC (11-9), Loyola-Chicago (11-8), Ball State (14-7), Lewis (11-10), Princeton (8-8), the Matadors, George Mason (9-7), UC San Diego (8-10), UC Santa Barbara (7-12), and McKendree (12-6).
SCOUTING THE OPPOSITION
UC San Diego (9-10, 1-2 Big West), ranked 18th in this week's AVCA/NVA Top-20 poll, is coming off a pair of non-conference home wins last week over Saint Katherine and Harvard. The Tritons, 5-4 at home this season, are 1-2 in Big West with a 3-1 win over UC Santa Barbara and a pair of 3-0 losses in a home-and-home series with UC Irvine. UCSD is led offensively by junior opposite Anthony Cherfan who averages a team-high 3.07 kills per set.
All-Time Series: The two matches this week mark the 94th and 95th meetings all-time between the Matadors and Tritons. In the series that dates back to 1977, CSUN has won 80 of the previous 93 meetings, including a 36-6 mark at home and a 41-6 mark in La Jolla. The two teams have also met 10 times at neutral sites with CSUN winning six of the 10. CSUN and UCSD split the Big West series last season with each winning on the other teams' home court; the Matadors won in four in La Jolla before UCSD claimed a straight-set win at CSUN.
CSUN IN BIG WEST OPENERS Â
Heading into Thursday's Big West opener at UC San Diego, CSUN is 20-26 (.435) all-time in conference season openers but is 26-19 (.578) all-time in conference home openers. The Matadors snapped a string of four straight Big West opening road losses with a four-set win at UC San Diego last season. The Tritons would exact some revenge, sweeping the Matadors in Northridge nearly one month later in CSUN's Big West home opener. Prior to 2023, CSUN had dropped four straight Big West road openers, 2022 at UC Santa Barbara (3-0), 2021 at UC Irvine (3-1), 2019 at Long Beach State (3-0), and 2018 at Long Beach State (3-0). The 2020 Big West season was not contested due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
HOBUS CLOSES IN ON 1,000 CAREER KILLS
With 19 kills against Penn State on Mar. 5, senior Kyle Hobus boosted his career kills total to 993 which ranks eighth in CSUN's Rally Scoring era. Hobus needs just three kills to become the 15th player in CSUN men's volleyball history with 1,000 career kills. Dimitar Kalchev (2016-19), the most recent CSUN hitter to reach 1,000 kills, ranks 10th in program history with 1,262 career kills. Hobus also moved into the top 10 in Rally Scoring era in a pair of other categories in recent weeks. Hobus is currently tied for fourth with Joe Nargi (2001-03) with a career kills per set average of 3.38, while also ranking seventh in the Rally Scoring top 10 in attempts. With 2,244 attacks, Hobus trails Isaac Kneubuhl (2005-08) by 263 attacks for sixth place.
CONSTABLE SURPASSES 2,000 CAREER ASSISTS
Junior setter Donovan Constable, already in the CSUN career top-10 in assists, became the 10th player in CSUN men's volleyball history with 2,000 career assists after posting 43 against Lewis on Feb. 24. Constable, who ranks fourth in the Big West and 12th nationally this week at 9.71 assists per set, now has 2,117 career assists to became the first Matador setter since Sam Porter in 2019 to reach 2,000 career assists. Matt Unger is the CSUN record holder with 5.732 assists from 1989-93. Since the sport went to the rally scoring format in 2001, only six Matador setters have reached 2,000 career assists (John Baxter - 5,164, Ty Tramblie - 4,090, Travis Bluemling - 3,833, Matt Stork - 3,780, Travis Magorien - 2,911, and Porter).
CSUN QUICK SETS Â
Junior Matteo Salvador has been an offensive weapon off the bench for the Matadors in recent weeks. After putting down a CSUN career-high nine kills against UC Merced on Feb. 7, Salvador connected for eight kills, hitting .636 on 11 swings against Penn State. Hitting .543 on the season, Salvador has also notched at least one ace in two of his last four appearances ... After finishing the non-conference portion of the 2024 schedule with a 9-8 record, the Matadors are now 20-13 in regular season non-conference matches in two seasons under Theo Edwards. CSUN finished 11-5 in 16 non-conference matches in 2023 ... After falling in four sets to No. 9 Penn State, CSUN finished 3-4 on its season-long, seven-match homestand. The Matadors also played a seven-match homestand in 2023, finishing 5-2. The pair of seven-match homestands are CSUN's longest stretch of home matches since 2012 when 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 CSUN finished 8-3. The Matadors also had a seven-match homestand in 2009 (finished 7-1) and a trio of six-match homestands in 1980, 2003 and 2020.
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
After this week's home-and-home series with No. 18 UC San Diego, the Matadors will hit the road, traveling to top-ranked Hawai'i for a pair of Big West matches next weekend (Mar. 22-23). CSUN returns home Mar. 29 to take on No. 5 UC Irvine at 6 p.m. Following the home-and-home series with UC Irvine (Mar. 29-30), the Matadors will open the month of April with home and away matches against Long Beach State (Apr. 5-6) and UC Santa Barbara (Apr. 12-13) which will cap the regular season.
#GoMatadors
