No. 3 BYU men's volleyball team has new look, new league, same expectations

PROVO — If the 2018 BYU men’s volleyball team looks different than past seasons, it’s not just an illusion.

In fact, it even seemed that way for senior setter Leo Durkin, who lost primary targets Ben Patch and Jake Langlois after another run to the 2017 NCAA Tournament championship against Ohio State.

"The joke was always that for me to miss Jake or Ben, I’d have to set it in the stands," said Durkin, whose team opens the season at 7 p.m. MST Friday against No. 13 Loyola-Chicago. "Obviously the ceiling is a little different on sets, and there’s a learning curve. But when we play in practice, there’s a rotation of players playing with each other, and I’m used to it already."

No matter who is in the lineup, the expectations remain for the Cougars, who were ranked No. 3 nationally in the preseason AVCA coaches poll.

They’ll open with a fun schedule, too. After Friday night’s match against the Ramblers, BYU will host No. 6 Lewis just 24 hours later in a four-team tournament that also includes UC Irvine.

Before opening conference play on Feb. 10 against USC, the Cougars will face two-time defending national champion Ohio State, Ball State, Barton, UC Irvine and UC Santa Barbara.

It’s all designed to better prepare BYU for an expanded NCAA Tournament field. After the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation split to form the Big West Conference, the field expanded to seven teams — five automatic bids representing each conference champion, and two at-large bids.

"Now we’ve got to compete against the Big West, that took the top teams out of our conference," BYU coach Shawn Olmstead said. "We're all interested to see how this goes. We’re trying to develop men’s volleyball in this country, but we will see where this goes. Hopefully, they expand the tournament even more now."

In addition to BYU, the new-look MPSF also includes USC, UCLA, Pepperdine and Stanford.

To balance out the conferences, the MPSF added Grand Canyon and Concordia Irvine to the conference slate. The Cougars will make their debut at GCU Arena in Phoenix on Feb. 15, followed by a trip to Irvine, California, two days later for the other newcomer.

But first comes the matter of the season opener.

While much of the talk has centered around who the Cougars lost in 2017 (reserve opposite Tim Dobbert also graduated early), BYU also added a few players who can make an immediate impact.

Chief among them is opposite hitter Gabi Garcia, the only true opposite listed on the roster. The 6-foot-7 freshman from San Juan, Puerto Rico, originally signed with Cal Baptist before the university disbanded the men’s volleyball program last spring.

A likely starter on the 2018 BYU squad, Garcia was a three-time prep All-American who played for the Puerto Rico youth and junior national teams.

"It was an easy recruit," Olmstead said of Garcia. "He wanted to be done. At that point, he was almost done with high school and just wanted to know where he was going."

Garcia fills a crucial role at BYU, which returns experience at every other position in outside hitter Brenden Sander, middle blockers Price Jarman and Miki Jauhiainen, and libero Erik Sikes, along with Durkin.

"The guys this year are awesome and absolutely love volleyball," Durkin said. "We’ve got a bunch of court rats who are here every day."

Preseason All-American Sander leads the returning group a year after averaging 2.95 kills per seat to go along with 30 aces, 59 blocks and 90 digs. Sophomore outside hitter Storm Fa’agata-Tufuga adds experience at the pin hitter position, and Long Beach City College transfer Cyrus Fa’alogo from West Jordan will add depth at outside hitter and setter.

"There are some elements of last year that won’t be a part of this team, but there are some facets of this team that we can capitalize on," Durkin said. "We’re going to be a lot faster of an offense."

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