SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The UC Santa Barbara Men's Volleyball team is ready to kick off the 2024 season, and with that comes the release of the schedule. Head Coach Rick McLaughlin put together another tough schedule to prepare his team for play in one of the toughest conferences in the country, The Big West.
 
As always, the Gauchos will start the season in Rob Gym as they host the Asics Invitational. This year, Grand Canyon, NJIT and George Mason will make their way to Santa Barbara to take on the Gauchos and two other Big West opponents in CSUN and UC San Diego for the three-day affair.
 
After that, UC Santa Barbara will stay in Rob Gym for two back-to-back series with Stanford and BYU. The Gauchos will take on the Cardinal Friday and Saturday, Jan. 12 and 13, with the Cougars coming to town the following weekend on Friday and Saturday, Jan. 19 and 20.
 
From there, Santa Barbara will take their first road trip of the season, heading south to Los Angeles to face the reigning national champions, UCLA, on Thursday, Jan. 25. Shortly after this, the Blue and Gold head to the northeast, starting the trip in New Jersey to face the Princeton Tigers on Wednesday, Jan. 31, before heading up to Boston. While in Boston, UCSB will face Daemen University on Feb. 2 before playing Harvard on Feb. 3.
 
Once they return to Santa Barbara, the Gauchos will host Pepperdine for the first match of this series on Thursday, Feb. 8, before making their way down to Malibu to play the Waves again on Feb. 10. The series of road matches continues from there as UC Santa Barbara will head to Thousand Oaks to play Cal Lutheran on Feb. 15 before starting Big West play in La Jolla against the UC San Diego Tritons on Feb. 23. To round out the month of February, UC Santa Barbara will also head to Irvine to play Concordia Irvine on Feb. 29.
 
The Gauchos will play one more non-conference match against Charleston on March 2 before they continue with The Big West slate. The first full weekend of conference play, the Gauchos will take on Long Beach State, playing at the Pyramid on Friday, March 8, before returning to Rob Gym on Saturday, March 9. The next weekend will be UC Santa Barbara's series against the Anteaters of UC Irvine, with the first match taking place at the Bren Center on Wednesday, March 13, before these two teams come to Rob Gym on Friday, March 15.
 
The back half of Big West play will continue for the Gauchos in Honolulu as they take on the reigning Big West Champions of Hawai'i in the Stan Sheriff Center on March 29 and 30. From there, they will return to play the second leg of their series with UC San Diego on April 5 in Rob Gym. The Gauchos will have two more matches to end the regular season against CSUN, kicking off the weekend on Friday, April 12 in Rob Gym before heading to Northridge for the second match on Saturday, April 13. Postseason play begins the following weekend as the Gauchos will head to the University of Hawai'i for The Big West Championships in hopes of earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament. The tournament will begin on Thursday, April 18 with a winner being crowned on Saturday, April 20.
 
For more information on the schedule, visit ucsbgauchos.com. Tickets will be released in the coming weeks.