The men's volleyball team is ranked fourth in the most recent American Volleyball Coaches Association Tachikara Top 15 poll, despite the fact that its 5-1 record is better than that of two of the teams ranked above the Lions.

"Until we beat one of the top teams, we will not move up," Lions' Coach Tom Peterson said. "It is a total dogfight out there --they get to play against the best teams every weekend, whereas we don't have that opportunity."

The AVCA, in its most recent poll, has three undefeated teams ranked in the top 10, but none of them are No. 1. Southern Cal has the highest rank of the three, coming in at No. 2 with its 2-0 record.

The AVCA has 15 coaches spread out across the country (five each from the east, midwest and west) who are counted upon to tally the previous weekend's results and submit fair rankings, which the AVCA then tallies and combines into one main poll.

"Don Shondell (the head coach) from Ball State helped us to select the best balance of coaches that would be most involved," said AVCA Sports Information Assistant Dave Allen. "Occasionally, some coaches do not vote regularly. But we are right on top of it, making sure that it doesn't happen often."

UCLA was ranked No. 1 in every preseason poll, and remains in first place despite its early loss to No. 3 Brigham Young. Because the Bruins have defeated top-ranked teams, and defeated them soundly, they have remained atop the polls.

"UCLA is perceived to be the best of the west, whether they've lost or not," Peterson said.

The Lions must also deal with the lack of strong overall competition. Despite their three matches against No. 5 Stanford and the two against BYU in April, the majority of the team's matches will be against teams like New Jersey Institute of Technology (Feb. 17), Eastern Mennonite (Mar. 18) and St. Francis College of Pennsylvania (Mar. 19).

"It is all with rankings," said senior outside hitter Ed Josefoski. "It is important for us to get a good ranking and to maintain that solid rank because we don't play that many ranked teams during the season."

Because of its opponent's strength, BYU is ranked third, despite its 1-3 mark. The Cougars' three losses this season have been to top-ranked UCLA (two sweeps) and No. 6 Pepperdine, with their only win being the five-game season opener against the Bruins.

"(BYU) are a very tall and talented team," Peterson said. "Losing to UCLA at UCLA had less of an impact than if they had lost elsewhere."