Can BYU use its home-court advantage to pull off something special at MPSF tournament?

BYU and UC San Diego compete during an NCAA men’s volleyball game held at the George Albert Smith Fieldhouse in Provo on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026. | Isaac Hale, Deseret News

BYU will be playing in friendly confines when it looks to win its first MPSF tournament title since 2021 beginning Wednesday at the Smith Fieldhouse. It marks the first time the Cougars will host the tournament since that same season. The Provo school is hoping for some of that same magic when it takes to the floor this week.

BYU head coach Shawn Olmstead was already looking forward to the opportunity to host the league’s tournament a few months ago as he prepared for the season.

“We’re hosting the MPSF tournament,” he said on the “Y’s Guys” show in January. “That’s a big thing we’re talking about, is getting our guys in a position through these matches over the next few months to be ready for that tournament come the end of April.”

The end of April has arrived, and with it the opportunity to do better in the MPSF tournament, the Cougars going one-and-done in three of the last four years.

This year, only eight of the league’s 10 squads will compete in the tournament. The matches begin Wednesday at 11 a.m. when No. 2 seed Pepperdine faces No. 7 seed Jessup, followed by No. 3 seed USC playing No. 6 seed Vanguard at 1:30 p.m., and No. 1 seed UCLA taking on No. 8 seed Concordia at 5 p.m. The day will be capped off by No. 4 seed Stanford taking on No. 5 seed BYU at 7:30 p.m.

Wednesday’s winners will play again Thursday, with matches scheduled to be played at 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. setting up Saturday’s championship matc,h which begins at 7 p.m.

BYU’s meeting with Stanford will mark the two programs’ third MPSF tournament matchup in the last four years. The Cougars and the Cardinal faced off in the league tournament last season and prior to that in 2023, BYU falling in five sets both times.

The pair of schools met in the regular season this year at Maples Pavilion where Stanford bested the Cougars two evenings in a row, in four sets and five sets, respectively.

Overall, BYU’s most recent luck has not been much better, entering postseason play having lost their last three matches to end the season, falling to then No. 4-ranked USC and twice to No. 1-ranked UCLA; however, the losses came on the heels of three straight wins for the Cougars, including in the first contest of their two-match series with the Trojans.