I had already written most of a column about how epic a national
championship match between UCLA and top-ranked UC Irvine would be.
Huge underdog Penn State wasn’t supposed to have a chance to
beat UCI in the semifinals on Thursday night.
But as I was finishing up, I saw the score ““ and Penn
State was up two games to none on UCI.
Suddenly, the UCLA fan in me began to seriously root for Penn
State ““ and every Bruin fan who had just tuned in and saw the
score should have had the same reaction.
Penn State finished off the upset in a thrilling five games.
More importantly, that means it’s likely UCLA will win a
national title on Saturday night. It’s not a 100 percent
lock. But it’s a very good chance.
In volleyball, all of the elite teams in the country are in the
West, and that’s the case this year, with the top-seven
ranked teams in the country playing west of the Rockies. Penn State
has piled up wins on a much weaker schedule than Western teams.
And Penn State isn’t going to play out of its mind two
matches in a row.
Sure, some of you will argue that Penn State has home-court
advantage on Saturday. But home-court advantage didn’t help
UCLA much last year when the Bruins lost to Pepperdine in the title
match.
UCLA will take the court on Saturday on an extremely long
winning streak and benefit from not having had to overexert itself
in its previous match.
Penn State will take the court only two days after one of the
bigger upsets in volleyball history, meaning the Nittany Lions will
be prime candidates for a letdown.
Rarely do you get a better chance at a national championship
than this one.
And for those of you who were concerned about UCLA’s
relatively close win over Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne on Thursday
““ don’t be.
Thursday wasn’t what the Bruins were thinking about or
preparing for. Saturday was on their minds, and Saturday is all
that matters.
The Bruins had one of their worst showings during their 13-match
winning streak against IPFW. But all they needed to do on Thursday
was to win 3-0, conserve energy for Saturday, and avoid any
injuries. And with the exception of Steve Klosterman’s gross
bloody nose, UCLA accomplished all three of those things.
I know UCLA had the potential to absolutely slaughter IPFW. But
it would not have been wise for the Bruins to actually try and do
that, and they have rightly aimed to peak on Saturday instead.
Even with UCLA not playing nearly at its best and IPFW playing
its heart out, the Bruins still won in a sweep.
Also, IPFW beat Penn State only a few weeks ago ““ making
that Penn State win over UCI look even more out of the
ordinary.
For UCLA, a win on Saturday not only would mark the most
unexpected NCAA championship under Scates ““ and remember,
he’s won 18 of them here ““ but also one of the more
unexpected championships in UCLA history.
It’s amazing when you think about it. Only a couple of
months ago, UCLA making it to the conference tournament seemed
unlikely. And now, the Bruins are the favorites to win the national
championship.
E-mail Quiñonez at gquinonez@media.ucla.edu.