Collegiate men’s volleyball games have long been victim to the curse of three.

From 2012 to 2024, each national champion team went back to back. But the three-peat remains elusive.

In fact, the last three-peat came over 40 years ago, when Hall of Fame coach Al Scates led UCLA to four consecutive titles from 1981 to 1984.

But all of that is set to change Monday.

Despite being led by first-year coach John Hawks, No. 3 seed UCLA men’s volleyball has more than enough talent to upset top-seeded Long Beach State in the NCAA tournament finals.

And while it was former coach John Speraw – a five-time national champion as a head coach of UC Irvine and UCLA – who led the Bruins to national titles in 2023 and 2024, Hawks is on the verge of achieving something more impressive than both of Speraw’s rings combined.

Speraw’s 2023 and 2024 rosters may have ranked among the most dominant in both UCLA and college men’s volleyball history. With the likes of former Bruins Ethan Champlin, Guy Genis, Troy Gooch, Alex Knight, Merrick McHenry, Miles Partain and Grant Sloane donning the blue and gold, it was virtually impossible for either team to fall short of a national title run.

Gooch was an AVCA All-American honorable mention and a finalist for the Steve Shondell Award as the nation’s best passer – and served as UCLA’s best libero in over a decade. McHenry and Champlin were both three-time First Team AVCA All-Americans. Partain was the 2022 MPSF Player of the Year, an AVCA First Team All-American and a finalist for the Lloy Ball Award, which honors the nation’s best setter.

Knight was an AVCA Second Team All-American selection in 2023 and played a crucial role as the team’s libero in the 2024 national championship. Meanwhile, Genis – an AVCA All-American honorable mention – played backup to McHenry, and Sloane – a Second Team All-MPSF selection – was a vital depth piece in both title runs.

Senior outside hitter/opposite Ido David was a crucial part of Speraw’s rotation in 2023, finishing his sophomore season as a First Team AVCA All-American. And while he is still a Bruin, he is far from his 2023 form – when he racked up a team-leading 23 kills against Hawaiʻi in the title match.

Simply put, Speraw had the equivalent of Space Jam’s “Monstars.”

“In the past, we have had these gnarly superteams, and so you kind of go into every game knowing you got it,” said junior setter Andrew Rowan after Saturday’s semifinal sweep over Hawaiʻi. “I think this year that knowing, ‘You got it,’ has really come for us at the end – just like how we are bonding, how we are communicating on the court and how we are playing together.”

And that’s not to say that Hawks doesn’t have superstars of his own. With four AVCA All-Americans in juniors middle blocker Cameron Thorne and outside hitter Zach Rama, redshirt junior outside hitter Cooper Robinson and Rowan, UCLA has one of the nation’s most star-studded lineups.

But with the departure of a stellar core and coaching mastermind in Speraw, many figured that the championship era in Westwood was over.

And for most of the season, they seemed right.

UCLA finished the regular season with its worst record since 2021 and was swept in half of its six losses – once by Long Beach State, once by Grand Canyon and again in the regular-season finale against USC. The Bruins lost just seven times across Speraw’s two championship seasons – and weren’t swept even once.

UCLA’s middling regular season forced some to believe the team shouldn’t even have been given an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament.

After falling in five sets to Pepperdine in the MPSF semifinals, some thought UC Irvine or USC deserved the final bid over UCLA – particularly considering the Trojans’ sweep over the Bruins just eight days prior and the Anteaters’ impressive 7-3 run to end their season, highlighted by a sweep of the No. 1 seed Beach.

Despite the outside noise, the Bruins defied expectations to sweep the Rainbow Warriors – even with Hawaiʻi’s building momentum heading into the NCAA tournament, winning seven of its last 10 contests on top of defeating the Beach twice and the Anteaters once in a five-match stretch from April 12 to April 26.

However, Hawaiʻi was no match for a reenergized UCLA squad that was unrecognizable from the version fans watched all season.

But what would make a potential three-peat even sweeter for the Bruins is their foes across the net.

Long Beach has one of its best rosters since its back-to-back national titles in 2018 and 2019. Although injuries will likely sideline two-time AVCA All-American outside hitter Sotiris Siapanis and 2025 AVCA All-American honorable mention Daniil Hershtynovich, the Bruins will still have to take care of First Team AVCA All-American outside hitter Skyler Varga, Second Team AVCA All-American DiAeris McRaven and AVCA All-American honorable mention libero Kellen Larson.

And don’t forget about AVCA Player and Newcomer of the Year setter Moni Nikolov.

Nikolov is just the second in NCAA history to win Player of the Year as a freshman – following in the footsteps of his older brother, outside hitter Alex Nikolov. In Long Beach’s two regular season matches against UCLA, Moni Nikolov garnered a combined 69 assists, 12 kills, five blocks and eight service aces. He’ll be the Beach’s main threat that the Bruins have to neutralize to clinch three in a row.

With a win Monday, Hawks will not only get his first national championship as a head coach but will have done so in his first year at the helm in Westwood.

So despite the departure of volleyball icons from Pauley Pavilion and a season full of adversity, the Bruins are just three sets from cementing their legacy in collegiate volleyball. Meanwhile, Hawks is on the brink of pulling off the unthinkable.