PROVO -- After having four road games the BYU Cougars (2-2) will come home to the Smith Fieldhouse Friday and Saturday to host the BYU Nike Classic. Kansas State, Weber State and Cal Poly are the featured teams for the 30th year of the tournament.
“We’re very excited to be playing on our home court,” said BYU head coach Shay Goulding. “The last two games were losses partially because of the other team’s home-court advantage. We’ve collected ourselves after the last couple games and we’re ready to play. We’ll be looking for a couple players to step up and lead this team this weekend.”
Preseason tournaments hosted by BYU have been a tradition since 1977. With the exception of two years (1993 and 1999), the Cougars have hosted at least one tournament each year. It is one of college volleyball’s longest running traditions, and although the name of the marquee tournament has evolved over the years from the BYU Preview to the BYU Invitational to the BYU Mizuno Classic to the BYU Molten Classic, to the current BYU Nike Classic, the premise has always been the same – to gather top teams from around the country for intense competition.
The Nike Classic will get started on Friday at 5 p.m. with Kansas State and Weber State facing off. BYU will then open its home season at 7 p.m. against Cal Poly. Saturday’s early action will feature Cal Poly vs. Kansas State at 10 a.m. followed by BYU vs. Weber State at 12 p.m. The tournament will conclude Saturday evening with a 5 p.m. match pitting Weber State against Cal Poly and a 7 p.m. contest between BYU and Kansas State.
Live stats will be available for all six matches while the BYU vs. Weber State contest will be available via Internet video streaming for BYU All-Access subscribers. For links to these options, visit the BYU women’s volleyball schedule page by clicking HERE.
Because All-Sport passes have not yet been distributed, all students can get into the volleyball matches with a valid BYU student ID.