No. 4 USC Men's Volleyball Treks to Provo to Meet No. 10 BYU

Friday, April 10

Provo, Utah

6:00 p.m. PT / 7:00 p.m. MT

USC

BYU

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USC men's volleyball opposite hitter Cooper Keane goes up to serve a ball during a match against Stanford at Galen Center

Photo by: William Fosnot

No. 4 USC Men's Volleyball Treks to Provo to Meet No. 10 BYU

April 06, 2026 | Men's Volleyball

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The Trojans have won eight straight matches heading into the regular season's penultimate weekend

LOS ANGELES – No. 4 USC (16-3, 8-2 MPSF) takes its eight-match win streak on the road to face No. 10 BYU (19-8, 6-4) in the regular season's penultimate weekend. The Trojans—who will play outside the Golden State for the first time this spring—and the Cougars will meet at Smith Fieldhouse in Provo, Utah, for the first of two matches on Friday (April 10) at 7 p.m. MT (6 p.m. PT) and then will do it again on Saturday (April 11) in a nationally televised contest on Big Ten Network at 8 p.m. MT. The Trojans have not only won eight straight overall, but they've also beaten the Cougars in each of the teams' last four meetings in the head-to-head series.

THIS WEEK
Smith Fieldhouse • Provo, Utah
No. 4 USC (16-3, 8-2 MPSF) at No. 10 BYU (19-8, 6-4 MPSF)

MATCH #20 • Friday, April 10 • 7 p.m. MT/6 p.m. PT
TV/STREAM: B1G+ (Jarom Jordan and Amy Gant)

MATCH #21 • Saturday, April 11 • 8 p.m. MT/7 p.m. PT
TV: B1G Network (Jarom Jordan and Amy Gant)

SERIES RECORD: USC trails, 29-51 (.363)
LAST MEETING: W 3-0 (March 8, 2025 • Provo, Utah)
STREAK: Won 4 • LAST 10 MEETINGS: 6-4
OPPONENT WEBSITE: BYUCougars.com

FIRST SERVE (TL;DR)

USC is led by 11th-year head coach Jeff Nygaard, a three-time Olympian in indoor and beach volleyball and a two-time NCAA champion.
The Trojans are ranked fourth in the AVCA Coaches Poll; the program's 516th appearance in the national poll.
USC is 13-2 at Galen Center. Last year, USC won 11 home matches and will play in its home arena 16 times in 2026. In fact, the Trojans play in Southern California for all but two regular-season matches (at BYU, April 10-11).
The Trojans lead the MPSF in blocks (2.60 bps), digs (8.97 dps) and opponent hitting percentage (.206). USC is second in assists (12.10 aps) and kills (12.91 kps) and is third in hitting percentage (.360).
Sr. OH Dillon Klein (Offensive) and So. MB Parker Tomkinson (Defensive) were each chosen for the Molten/MPSF Player of the Week honors. It was the eighth-career award for Klein and the third for Tomkinson.
Sr. OH Dillon Klein ranks second in both the nation and the MPSF for kills (4.20 kps) and points (4.97 pps). He has reached double-digit kills in 16 of 17 matches and has had six contests with 20 or more kills.
Redshirt So. MB Wesley Smith leads the MPSF in blocks (1.18 bps) which ranks fifth in the NCAA.
Two Trojans rank in the top four of the MPSF for digs. So. LIB Johnny Dykstra is third with 1.80 dps and Jr. S Caleb Blanchette is fourth at 1.80 dps.

LAST TIME OUT: The Trojans swept 14th-ranked Stanford for the team's seventh consecutive straight-set win and then won the first set of a 3-1 victory in the rematch to extend to a 22-set win streak for a new program record. In the only set lost over the weekend, USC fell by just three points after being down by as many as nine (11-2). In it, Dillon Klein attacked 10 times and had 10 kills to hit 1.000 as part of a night on which he finished with 20 kills, nine digs, four blocks, and a pair of service aces to total 24.5 points. In the same match, Caleb Blanchette turned in a 41-assist and 11-dig performance for his third double-double of the season (eighth career).

POLL POSITION: The Trojans ranked No. 5 in the AVCA Preseason Poll. USC now ranks fourth in the April 6 poll for the Trojans' 516th time in the poll. Last season, USC reached fifth on Feb. 3 to mark their highest position since they were also ranked No. 5 in 2022 (April 18). On March 10, 2025, USC's spot at No. 5 marked the 200th time the Trojans had been ranked in the poll's top five; now 221 times. The Trojans reached the top three (March 24, 2025) for the first time in over 10 years and were previously ranked as high as third on Feb. 16, 2015.

EXTENDED: 11th-year head coach Jeff Nygaard had his contract extended through the 2028 season. He is the longest-tenured coach in program history and has collected 139 wins at USC. In 2025, he led the Trojans to their highest ranking in over a decade. He became the fourth winningest coach in school history and needs just three wins to match Jim McLaughlin (142) for third all-time. Bob Yoder (211 wins; 1982-89) and Bill Ferguson (150 wins; 2007-15) are USC's all-time leaders in career wins.

POW-WOW: Seven Trojans have won MPSF/Molten Player of the Week honors. OH Dillon Klein was named Offensive Player of the Week for the first USC award of 2026 on Feb. 2 and has since earned it two more times (Feb. 16, April 6) and been tabbed for weekly honors a total of eight times in his career. MB Parker Tomkinson was picked twice as a freshman in 2025 and joined Klein on April 6 in a Trojan sweep to bring home his third-career honor. MB Wesley Smith was chosen for his second-career Defensive Player of the Week award on Feb. 9. LIB Brad Pan earned the Defensive Player of the Week award on Feb. 16; the first of his career. He was also chosen for the same honor as a freshman in 2024. On March 23, Johnny Dykstra (defensive) and Sterling Foley (offensive) swept the awards. Among others who have also won previously, S Caleb Blanchette was named for the defensive honor in 2025. USC has swept the weekly awards eight times since March 7, 2022.

READY-SET: The Trojans' 22-set win streak which began on March 12 and remained intact until a loss to Stanford on April 4 is the longest under head coach Jeff Nygaard and set a new school record, which had stood since 1991. USC's sweeps of Menlo (March 27-28) helped the Trojans reach 18 in a row, which eclipsed a run of 16 sets from March 10-31, 2012; the previous set-streak record during the rally-scoring era (since 2001). Including the sideout scoring era, the previous school record was 21 sets in a row in 1991.

1K DK: OH Dillon Klein has reached double-digit kills in 77 of 96 career matches including getting to the 20-kill mark 13 times. He recorded 1,000 career kills on April 17, 2025, in a match at UCLA and now has 1,318 career kills and counting.

UPPER CLASS: OH Dillon Klein ranks second in the MPSF for points per set (4.97 pps, 2nd in the NCAA) and kills per set at 4.20 kps (2nd in the NCAA). Through three completed matches, he was the NCAA leader in hitting percentage but is now second in the MPSF and is ninth in the nation at .398.

2K GOLD: S Caleb Blanchette crossed the 2,000-assist mark in his career in the Trojans' season opener against St. Thomas Aquinas (Jan. 10). He dished out 28 assists in a 3-0 win over the Spartans and is now up to 2,624-career assists. In 2025, he led the MPSF—ranked fourth in the NCAA—in assists (10.61 aps) and equaled his career-high (61) twice.

BLOCKHEADS: MB Wesley Smith and MB Parker Tomkinson are among the top blockers in the MPSF. Smith's 1.18 blocks per set leads the conference (5th in the NCAA) while Tomkinson averages 1.07 blocks per set to rank second in the league.

JOHNNY ON THE SPOT: LIB Johnny Dykstra ranks third in the MPSF for digs (1.80 dps). As a freshman, he produced nine matches in double-digit digs and ranked 18th in the nation for digs, third best among the nation's freshmen. Dykstra logged his first two double-digit digs matches against UCLA this spring. He put up a career-high 19 digs in the first meeting between the crosstown rivals and is up to 12-career matches in double-digit digs.