HONOLULU — The potential for unpredictability in the Big West men’s volleyball tournament was on full display one year ago.

Unheralded UC San Diego knocked off host and top-seeded Hawaii in five sets in the semifinals, a huge setback for a team with national championship ambitions. UH had to sweat out the NCAA selection show to learn its postseason fate — then made good on its at-large berth to win the title that mattered most.

What You Need To Know

  • The Big West men's volleyball tournament gets underway Thursday at Hawaii's SimpliFi Arena with a 4:30 p.m. matchup between No. 4 UC San Diego and No. 5 UC Irvine, followed by No. 3 UC Santa Barbara and No. 6 Cal State Northridge

  • Host Hawaii (22-5, 7-3 Big West), the second seed, awaits the winner of UCSB and CSUN in a 7 p.m. semifinal Friday that is expected to draw a large crowd

  • UH stumbled in the Big West semifinals last April to unheralded UC San Diego, but received an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament and made the most of it with a national championship

  • Spectrum Sports is broadcasting the entire Big West tournament

Coach Charlie Wade and the ‘Bows are the Big West host team once again this weekend, and once again they received a bye straight into the semifinals as a top-two seed.

They’ve resolved not to waste the opportunity for an automatic NCAA bid this time.

“We certainly control our own destiny now,” Wade told local media this week. “We would like nothing more than to win the tournament again and get in directly.”

A raucous crowd is expected at SimpliFi Arena for Friday’s semifinal against Thursday’s first-round winner between No. 3 UC Santa Barbara and No. 6 Cal State Northridge.

Fourth-seeded UCSD and fifth-seeded UC Irvine get the action started at 4:30 p.m. Thursday. Top-seeded Long Beach State awaits the winner of that match in the first of Friday’s semifinals.

It is the third straight running of the six-team tournament in the islands, going back to 2019, in the Big West’s partnership with the Hawaii Tourism Authority and Outrigger Hotels. UH won it behind a sellout crowd in 2019, but the 2020 edition was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2021 edition was held sans fans.

Second-seeded UH is hoping it can generate something close to a sellout crowd on Friday, and then in a potential title match Saturday, should it get that far.

“That would be amazing. We would’ve come full circle from back in March 2020 against BYU,” Wade said of the electric sellout atmosphere that immediately preceded COVID shutdowns.

“The crowd was great against Santa Barbara on senior night (two weeks ago), and we know it’s going to be a good crowd — we’re appreciative of everyone making the effort. But I think we could get close to filling the place up. That creates an unbelievable environment to be a part of, and a nice advantage for us.”

UH (22-5, 7-3 BWC) has won four straight matches since stumbling at Long Beach in two marquee matchups to begin April.

On Wednesday, UH placed three players on the All-Big West first team: setter Jakob Thelle, middle Guilherme Voss and hitter Spyros Chakas. Mouchlias was named a BWC honorable mention. The league’s top awards — player of the year, coach of the year and freshman of the year — will be announced next week.

The Beach (19-4, 8-2), featuring stud freshman hitter Alex Nikolov and twitchy libero Mason Briggs, has been far from infallible as the other favorite in the tournament. It lost a five-setter at UCSD on April 9, and was pushed to five sets on its senior night at the Pyramid against last-place CSUN.

Upsets can most certainly happen. At this time a year ago, UH opposite Dimitrios Mouchlias was rehabbing an injury in his native Greece and was watching the Big West tournament with his father at home at 3 a.m. when disaster struck his comrades.

“Absolutely, it was a lesson last year,” said Mouchlias, who was named the Big West Offensive Player of the Week after putting up a career-high 31 kills at UC Irvine on Saturday. “Coach keeps reminding us what happened last year, so we don’t have to sit back and relax. We’ve got to play each game 100%.”

UH went 4-0 during the season against CSUN and UCSB, although it had to storm back from down 1-0 and 2-1 in sets to beat the Gauchos in five on senior night. UCSB features hitter Ryan Wilcox, the Punahou alumnus who won Most Outstanding Player as UCSB won last year's tournament in Honolulu as the No. 2 seed.

Spectrum Sports is broadcasting every match in this year's tournament.

The Big West tournament will rotate to UC Irvine next year, but its site is yet to be determined beyond that, Wade said. Las Vegas has been mentioned as a possibility as a neutral site, he said, and schools which have not yet hosted have made a case. But he thinks the conference’s largest venues — SimpliFi Arena, the Pyramid, and UCI’s Bren Events Center — should more often than not be granted hosting duties.

“We love hosting and being a part of that and hoping we get the opportunity in the future,” Wade said.

Brian McInnis covers the state's sports scene for Spectrum News Hawaii.