Even in its championship years, including NCAA titles the last two seasons and four of the last seven, the UC Irvine men's volleyball coaching staff has learned that the best-laid plans sometimes need major tweaking.
So after his team dropped a pulsating five-set match to defending Mountain Pacific Sports Federation regular-season champion BYU, 19-25, 34-32, 21-25, 25-19, 15-12, on Wednesday at the Bren Events Center, second-year UCI head man David Kniffin stood calmly and asserted that his quest for the proper plan for this year's success remains, well, just as planned.
"We're figuring out how to win and we're getting close," said Kniffin, the 2013 Volleyball Magazine Coach of the Year who guided the Anteaters to the NCAA crown in his first season at the helm last year. "Actually, I'm pretty encouraged by our fight tonight. I thought that was the best we have actually battled. I don't know if the execution was there, but I think that is something that will come over time."