The 2026 NCAA men’s volleyball campaign has officially concluded after Hawai‘i beat UC Irvine in four sets in the national championship match hosted at Pauley Pavilion on Monday. The Bruins lost their opportunity to make their fourth consecutive appearance in the final game after falling to the Anteaters in five sets May 2. Daily Bruin contributor Steven Chaparyan gives his five main takeaways from the Bruins’ 2026 season.
One for the history books
While many are likely to associate the Bruins’ 2026 campaign with just one heartbreaking defeat, the squad’s pure dominance through the first two-thirds of the season simply cannot be forgotten.
With a program-best 20-0 start to the season, there was no team in the nation even close to rivaling the blue and gold.
70% of the victories during that streak were sweeps, and the elite production came from all aspects of the court.
Sophomore outside hitter Sean Kelly – who seems to have taken the next step in his development in just his second collegiate season – tallied a then-career-high 21 kills on a .526 clip in a road victory against then-No. 5 USC on March 3 in a five-set thriller. The 2026 AVCA First Team All-American hit at a .500-plus hitting percentage seven times throughout the historic run.
Meanwhile, UCLA held its opponents to a sub-.300 hitting percentage in 15 of its 20 matches during the win streak, including a .051 hitting performance by Fort Valley State in a Jan. 22 straight-set win for the Bruins.
Simply put, UCLA came out with a seemingly flawless response to being swept by Long Beach State in the NCAA championship to end the 2025 season.
Despite 2026 concluding with yet another devastating storyline, that 20-match run will forever be immortalized in the record books.
Slow starts
Toward the end of the regular season, signs began pointing to the fact that this group may not have been truly invincible after all, especially considering the squad’s slow starts to games.
Senior outside hitter Zach Rama called it a “punch in the mouth” after defeating No. 5 seed BYU in the semifinal round of the MPSF tournament April 23, despite losing the first set 25-20.
The Bruins dropped the opening frame in five of their final 10 matches, including postseason play. This may not seem like a notable statistic, but for a team that only lost a first set three times up until those final ten matches, this marked a clear shift from the undisputed dominance of the early season.
Those first-set losses allowed opponents to better establish themselves and control the early tempo of the matches, forcing the Bruins to win games by clawing back, as opposed to protecting leads. UCLA was taken to five sets in just five matches this season, and it dropped the first set in three of those matches.
Perhaps the worst aspect is that many of those set losses were the result of self-inflicted errors. In the BYU postseason match, despite ultimately ending in a UCLA victory, the Bruins committed seven service errors in the first set compared to just one by the Cougars, continuing a pattern of high-volume service errors that dates back to last season.
While volleyball is a game of multiple stanzas, coming out of the gate slowly is likely to bleed into the rest of the match. As the season came to a close, these sluggish starts may have been an indicator that opponents were finally figuring out how to exploit the squad’s few weaknesses.
Core no more
Losing 2025 MPSF Player of the Year Cooper Robinson last season was significant for the Bruins, but the squad had an elite trio of rising seniors to supplement Robinson’s impact.
Now, with Rama, senior setter Andrew Rowan and senior middle blocker Cameron Thorne graduating, the squad may undergo a dropoff unlike any other it has experienced in recent years.
Rowan, the 2026 AVCA National Collegiate Player of the Year, is just the fourth player in NCAA history to earn AVCA First Team All-American honors four times. The Trabuco Canyon, California, local recorded a nation-high 11.37 assists per set in 2026, a notable increase from his 10.08 tally last season. His floor spacing and ability to facilitate attacking opportunities for pin hitters were integral aspects of the Bruins’ offense and will be almost impossible to fully replicate.
Meanwhile, Thorne has provided an unmatched spark of energy and explosiveness in his two years with the team after transferring from Grand Canyon University. A three-time AVCA First Team All-American himself, Thorne tallied 208 total kills this season on a conference-high .509 hitting percentage.
And Rama’s growth has truly been a sight to see. With just nine combined starts in his first two years, the Phoenix local has increased his kills-per-set mark from 1.94 as a freshman to 3.64 this season as a senior. He has also elevated his role as a facilitator, raising his assists-per-set mark from 0.09 to 0.42 across that same span.
This trio has been a defining aspect of the squad’s identity this year, and it will take time – possibly a few seasons – to replicate its team-wide impact in the future.
Who will step up?
We’ve still seen flashes of younger talent within the veteran-studded roster this season. While next year’s starting lineup may not include several All-American First-Teamers, coach John Hawks still has plenty of options to help prevent a dramatic drop-off.
Though not as inexperienced as some of the other pieces on the team, junior middle blocker Micah Wong Diallo will play a more prominent role next year and likely assume Thorne’s place. The Los Angeles local saw action in just six matches in his first two seasons, but he started 27 matches in 2026. Diallo has posted 147 total kills on an efficient .500 clip this season, proving himself to be a valuable part of the middle rotation next to Thorne.
As for the setter position, UCLA will likely retain freshman Rafael Urbina and sophomore Trent Taliaferro. While Urbina is yet to take the floor for the Bruins, Taliaferro saw action in 27 matches this season and made one start, posting a season-high 13 assists April 12 in a win against Menlo. His father, Brandon Taliaferro, led UCLA to two NCAA championships as a player in 1998 and 2000 and holds the program record for all-time set assists. Trent Taliaferro will now have the opportunity to live up to the family standard and make up for Rowan’s departure.
In terms of hitters, Hawks experimented with several fresh faces in the final road trip of the regular season against UC Merced and Menlo. Freshman outside hitter Filippos Chrysostomou took the floor in all three games of that trip for his first game action in over two months, posting eight total kills in four sets played.
Opposites freshman Grayson Bradford and sophomore Caleb Sapp also saw playing time during the road trip. Bradford was frequently utilized in late-set situations for his serving abilities, and he could expect to see more offensive opportunities next season.
UCLA has also received verbal commitments from two highly touted high school recruits in the class of 2026 – outside hitter/middle blocker Cole Barkett from Irvine and outside hitter Elan Taylor from San Jose. Barkett was named to the 2026 AVCA High School All-America Watch List, while Taylor has experience playing for the Boys U19 National Team.
The Bruins are inevitably going to face a loss of elite talent next season, but 2027 doesn’t seem to be shaping up to be a full-on rebuild year.
A clean slate
No matter how you frame this season, it did not end in storybook fashion.
The regular season may have been the closest thing to perfection this squad could have produced, and putting “championship or bust” expectations on the team was not even unreasonable.
But looking back on the year now, I can’t seem to get rid of the bad aftertaste.
It is devastating that one of the best seasons in program history – and the final season for three all-time seniors – was brought to an end by a highly controversial touch call.
It is devastating that, at the end of the day, this historic squad could be left with nothing but unanswered questions and a review that was far too close to be definitively overturned.
But the damage has been done, and the real question now is how the team will respond.
Hawks constantly stressed the importance of learning from adversity this season, and using that crushing loss as fuel will be key for the Bruins to come out strong in 2027.
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