No. 20 Arizona Opens Play at Pac-12 Tournament on Wednesday

PALO ALTO, Calif. – The Arizona beach volleyball team will play the first game of the 2023 Pac-12 Beach Volleyball Championship on Wedneday at 10:15 a.m. PT against No. 2 seed USC. The match will be televised live on Pac-12 Networks. 

A win over the Trojans would advance the Wildcats to the quarterfinals on Thursday, while a loss would see the Cats back in action on Wednesday at 5:15 p.m. PT.

TEAM NOTES

• Arizona is 19-10 on the season and is looking for one more win to reach 20 wins for the fifth time in the 10 years the program has existed.
• Head coach Steve Walker is in his 10th season as the head coach of the Wildcats – the only head coach the program has had since it was started in 2014. His record with the Wildcats is 178-80 (.690).
• Arizona is ranked No. 20 in this weeks AVCA Top 20 poll
• The Wildcats are 3-7 against Top 20 teams this season, picking up wins over No. 10 Stanford, No. 17 Pepperdine and No. 14 Georgia State.
• Six of the last seven opponents for Arizona have been ranked in the Top 14 of the AVCA Top 20 poll and the Wildcats are 1-6 in those games.
• Earlier this season, Arizona lost to No. 2 USC on April 8 by a score of 4-1 during the Pac-12 North Invitational hosted by Stanford.

  • The one match win against the Trojans marked just third time in the all-time series that UA had won a match (2014, 2017, 2023)

• Arizona is 0-11 all-time against USC and 0-2 against the Trojans in the Pac-12 Tournament (2016, 2022)

  • Last year in Tucson at the Pac-12 Championship, USC defeated Arizona, 3-0.
  • Seven of the 10 Wildcats that competed against USC last year at the Pac-12 Tournament are still on the roster and all seven are likely to be in the lineup this week.

• Last Friday, Arizona dropped a heartbreaker to Arizona State at Bear Down Beach, 3-2. The Wildcats won the first two matches (2’s and 4’s) before dropping the final three matches – all in three sets.

  • In the first meeting of the year between the two schools in Tempe, Arizona won the 2’s and 4’s and then lost the last three matches to lose the dual.

• Arizona’s record by lineup order:

  • No. 1 – 16-13 (.552)
  • No. 2 – 18-11 (.621)
  • No. 3 – 19-10 (.655)
  • No. 4 – 23-6 (.793)
  • No. 5 – 19-10 (.655)

• The Wildcats roster features 10 seniors, 3 juniors, 3 sophomores and two…