After finishing 10-12 and 8-10 in Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) play a season ago – good for the 8th overall national ranking in the country with the difficult conference schedule – Pepperdine will search for a stronger 2018 as they now have the path for their desired goals.
The season starts off with a tournament in Canada right before the calendar year switches for an exhibition event. Following that, the true season opener occurs on January 7 against Cal Lutheran on Pepperdine’s home court in Malibu. A home match with UC Irvine (Jan. 13), who finished 2017 ranked fifth, precedes the conference opener against UC Santa Barbara (Jan. .20), who received votes in the final AVCA Poll last year.
Three more non-conference matches, including one against Ball State (ranked 12th to finish 2017) push the Waves to a few more conference matches before a road match with UC Irvine. Another second match of a series comes at UC Santa Barbara a few weeks later as Loyola-Chicago comes to town later in the season. Those matches are all sandwiched between MPSF matches though as the slate remains incredibly difficult.
As part of that conference slate, Pepperdine faces challenges such as USC (11th), UCLA (7th), Stanford (9th) and Grand Canyon (13th), who the Waves will all see twice as all finished last year ranked.
That doesn’t even include BYU either, who was the runner-up a season ago in the National Title match. Pepperdine will face the Cougars in Provo on March 1 with a return meeting coming to Malibu on April 5. That will be their next to last match of the regular season before their second meeting with Stanford. Then, the MPSF Championships occur.
As Pepperdine shoots for its first National Championship since 2005, they will look to conquer their schedule put in place and seen below in its entirety:
| Date | Opponent / Event | Location | Time / Result | Media | |
| University of Alberta Tournament | |||||
| 12/29/17 | at University of Alberta Tournament (Dec. 29-31) # | Alberta, Canada | TBA | MORE | |
| 01/07/18 | vs. |
Malibu, Calif. | 5:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 01/13/18 | vs. |
Malibu, Calif. | TBA | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 01/20/18 | vs. * |
Malibu, Calif. | TBA | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 01/26/18 | at |
Fairfax, Va. | 4:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 01/27/18 | vs. |
Fairfax, Va. | 4:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 02/03/18 | vs. |
Malibu, Calif. | TBA | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 02/08/18 | at * |
Phoenix, Ariz. | 7:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 02/10/18 | at * |
Irvine, Calif. | 1:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 02/14/18 | at |
Irvine, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 02/17/18 | vs. * |
Malibu, Calif. | TBA | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 02/21/18 | at |
Santa Barbara, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 02/23/18 | vs. * |
Malibu, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 03/01/18 | at * |
Provo, Utah | 6:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 03/03/18 | at * |
Palo Alto, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 03/07/18 | at* |
Los Angeles, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 03/10/18 | vs. |
Malibu, Calif. | 5:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 03/15/18 | vs.* |
Malibu, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 03/17/18 | vs.* |
Malibu, Calif. | 5:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 03/29/18 | at * |
Los Angeles, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | MORE | |
| 04/05/18 | vs. * |
Malibu, Calif. | 7:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| 04/07/18 | vs. * |
Malibu, Calif. | 5:00 p.m. PT | GT
TV:
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MORE |
| MPSF Championships | |||||
| 04/14/18 | vs. MPSF Quarterfinal | TBA | TBA | MORE | |
| 04/19/18 | vs. MPSF Semifinal | TBA | TBA | MORE | |
| 04/21/18 | vs. MPSF Final | TBA | TBA | MORE | |
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