BU men struggled against top teams

The Brandon University Bobcats men’s volleyball team won more matches at home on one weekend last March than it did in the entire 2025-26 regular season.

As a result, they’re watching the U Sports men’s volleyball championship this weekend, rather than defending their title.

The Bobcats went 7-13, winning just two matches at home. They took the 10th and final playoff spot and made a quick trip to Saskatoon, losing both matches to a 9-11 Saskatchewan Huskies team.

“We probably got what we deserved,” said head coach Grant Wilson. “We came in with the belief that we could continue to pursue the top half and give ourselves a chance at the end of the year but at the end of the day, with the turnover of key starters we lost and key leaders we lost, we had a really hard time finding our identity and a level of consistency that was good enough to put us there.

“As a whole, this group definitely grew, got better and will hopefully have benefited from not finishing the way we wanted and will come in a little more motivated.”

HOME COOKING

As crazy as it sounds, the Bobcat men only won two matches in a place where fans have gone expecting victories for years.

They swept the Mount Royal Cougars on the first home weekend of the season, then endured eight losses, only a few of them close.

In their defence, the home schedule was ultra-tough, featuring four of the top five teams in the conference in Manitoba, UBC Okanagan, Trinity Western and Alberta.

However, they managed to beat all the top teams at home in 2024-25, splitting Alberta, Saskatchewan and Winnipeg on home court before beating all of them again at nationals.

“We’ve always found a way to punch above our weight and split with those teams at home or on the road and that didn’t happen this year,” Wilson said.

“We had our moments but we just weren’t able to close out some of those games. Times in the past where we’d be really good in the red zone (after 20 points), we weren’t this year. We paid the price for it.”

Brandon went .500 on the road this year, with weekend sweeps of the cellar-dwelling Fraser Valley Cascades and MacEwan Griffins and a split against the Huskies.

THE LINEUP

The Bobcats had been one of the best blocking teams in the country for the past few years. Suddenly, they lost their four top blockers — setter JJ Love, opposite Riley Grusing and middle blockers Philipp Lauter and Chris Bryant — and became average.

They dropped from 2.60 to 2.09 blocks per set.

For Wilson, the absence of Love, Grusing, Lauter and libero Michael Flor went beyond the numbers.

“It was their ability to influence our group in terms of holding everybody to a certain standard on and off the court,” Wilson said.

“We had full confidence in the people we had here and have trust in our leadership group but they lead differently than the previous guys. It’s not worse, it’s not better, it’s just different.

“Sometimes you still need to have that voice and after we had our player meetings, that was something a lot of guys talked about. We need to be more vocal, holding people accountable in our program.”

“The leadership group will have learned from that.”

The Bobcats needed two new starting middle blockers with Lauter’s graduation and Bryant being academically ineligible. Riley Brunet was the most experienced one, with second-year Matthew Siebenga suddenly going from fourth on the depth chart to virtually no one behind him.

Siebenga quickly adjusted to the game and averaged 1.07 blocks per set, good for seventh in the league, while Brunet was 20th at .75. Siebenga was also the team’s most efficient attacker at .392.

“I always look at the blocking side of things first and I was relatively happy with their job,” Wilson said.

“They were the only guys that saw the floor, so they know the two young middles we have coming in with Luke (Schroeder) and Alfredo (Enns), they’re going to get pushed and it may not be as safe a position as they were in this year.”

What anyone could see was that Brandon suddenly went from one of the biggest blockers and most offensively minded setters in the country to six-foot-one Kale Fisher.

Wilson said the Edmonton product, who finished fifth in Canada West at 9.07 assists per set, made good strides in his first year as a starter, but probably fed outside hitters Liam Pauls and Tom Friesen too much, especially in the playoffs as Saskatchewan was all over them.

Wilson doesn’t feel Keon Torz or Matt Lefebvre are far off of overtaking Fisher for the job.

Whoever runs the offence will suddenly have more than 1,000 sets to find a new home for as both outside hitters are moving on.

They were one of the highest-scoring duos in the conference, as Friesen (3.39 kills per set) and Pauls (2.97) were seventh and 14th, respectively. BU will need to correct that lack of balance without the same firepower next season.

Or, perhaps, the offensive focus shifts to the other side as it did towards the end of the season, as Liam Kindle had double-digit kill counts in three of the last four regular-season matches and 16 in the last playoff contest.

“Arguably, Kinzy was our best attacker the last few weekends of the season. He was stable, efficient and gave us a chance to win,” Wilson said.

“If he wants to stay on the floor, he has to score points. He also has to put teams under pressure with his serve and from there, he needs to continue to be a better blocker and a better defender.”

“There are certainly guys behind him that aren’t far away.”

Australian libero Cooper Bevan earned Wilson’s trust as the best receiver on the team, while Kingston Thomas played the defensive libero role until the end of the year when Wilson said he was slightly injured and Torz took over.

MOVING FORWARD

As bright as the future for this program is with all-rookie team member Ethan Baraniuk leading the young corps, it’s likely going to get worse before improving, given the losses Brandon has to adjust to.

There will be major position battles across the board, especially with import opposite Jobe McAuley coming off a redshirt year, Ryden Hargreaves hopefully returning from a medical redshirt season and another potential all-rookie team newcomer in Mason Lange of Ontario arriving.

One school of thought would be to hand the keys over to the young bucks and expedite their growth, but that’s not how Wilson operates.

“Our philosophy won’t change. We’ll put the guys on the floor that we feel give us the best chance to succeed (now). I don’t care if it’s a fifth-year guy, a first-year guy. Who has the trust of our coaching staff? Who has the trust of their teammates?” Wilson said.

“If there comes a time and situation where we’re out of playoffs, no chance to advance to the post-season, could it change? Yeah, for sure, it could because now we’re talking about success in a different metric.”

» tfriesen@brandonsun.com