UCLA, Pepperdine Get Critical Test

Friday’s men’s volleyball match between No. 1 UCLA and No. 3 Pepperdine might be bigger than the two teams anticipated a few weeks ago. Not only will the loser be seeded lower in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation playoffs, it might miss a chance to play in the NCAA tournament entirely.

The top seeding in the playoffs assures home-court advantage throughout the tournament. Though there is still one more match before the playoffs start, Friday’s winner should clinch the No. 1 spot, as both UCLA and Pepperdine play teams with losing records in their last games of the regular season.

“It’s probably one of our most important matches of the year,” said Bruin Coach Al Scates, who is looking to win an unprecedented 17th national championship at UCLA.

“[In a single-elimination tournament], if you’re playing at BYU or Pepperdine, places with small gyms and low ceilings, places where the crowd is close to the floor, it could be difficult. So we’d like to keep it here at Pauley [Pavilion].”

Having home-court advantage in the conference playoffs, which start April 18, could be more crucial than in the past.

The conference winner automatically qualifies for the four-team NCAA tournament in Hawaii on April 30. One team each from the East and Midwest regions, plus one at-large team will join the MPSF champion. Usually the at-large team comes from the MPSF, the nation’s strongest conference.

But after losing to Ohio State on March 24, Pepperdine dropped behind the Buckeyes in the rankings. So if Ohio State is upset in its Midwest Intercollegiate Volleyball Assn. tournament, the at-large birth might go to the Buckeyes.

But Pepperdine Coach Marv Dunphy says it’s premature to start figuring out who’s going to the NCAA championships.

“All of that is yet to be determined. The NCAA doesn’t make the final selection until after the conference tournament,” he said. “We still have [two] regular-season games to play before then, and we’re focusing on that.”

Still, with the at-large bid in the hands of the committee, the best way for UCLA or Pepperdine to get to Hawaii would be to win the MPSF championship outright. And the road to the playoffs starts Friday night.

The two are tied for first place in the Mountain Division, and Pepperdine, 18-3 overall and 14-2 in the conference, will look to even the season series with UCLA (22-3, 14-2). A two-game lead slipped away in the Waves’ first meeting with UCLA on Jan. 29, in front of 2,500 at Pepperdine.

In the five-game match, Pepperdine junior George Roumain finished with 41 kills on 76 sets, and Scates expects the same performance again.

“You can’t stop him, you just hopes he slows down after 80 or so hits,” he said. “At that point, we’ll try to get him then. But that’s assuming it goes four or five games.”

A long match is likely. The first meeting went for more than three hours before the depth of the Bruins proved the difference.

“Both programs know each other pretty well,” Dunphy said. “We’re not going to shut down all their players, and I don’t think they will stop all of ours. It should be a great match.”

The Bruins also have experience. Five of six starters return from a team that made it to the national title match last year, including sophomore Adam Naeve and senior Ben Moselle.

“I feel we are a stronger team than last year, but we can still get better come playoff-time,” said Scates.

The Waves have not won at UCLA since 1986, losing 13 consecutive matches at Pauley Pavilion.

University Beat Notes

UCLA will play host to the 1998 NCAA women’s gymnastics championships on April 16-18 at Pauley Pavilion. The Bruins will look to repeat their national championship run of a year ago, but top-seeded Georgia is the favorite to win. The Bruins are seeded No. 10 of 12 teams and qualified only after a late rally in the West Regional. . . . Loyola Marymount named Paul Krumpe its men’s soccer coach. Krumpe, a former member of the U.S. national team, coached at UCLA from 1995 to ’97.