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State College, Pa. — It won't do them any good Thursday night when they take on Long Beach State in an NCAA Men's Volleyball Tournament semifinal match (4 p.m. MDT) at Rec Hall on the campus of Penn State University, but the BYU Cougars won the press conference on Wednesday morning in a well-appointed room adjacent to the historic arena.

Laughter abounded — thanks mostly to the wit and humor of one Ben Patch — as the coach Shawn Olmstead, sophomore Patch, junior Jake Langlois and sophomore Brenden Sander (Brenen Sander on his name plate) met with reporters.

The pre-tournament favorite Cougars (26-3) are loose, if nothing else, on the eve of their biggest match, to date, of the season.

They affectionately call this place "Happy Valley," quite the contrast to how folks out West refer to the Provo/Orem area as Happy Valley in a somewhat less affectionate tone.

But the Cougars were certainly joyful after practicing on the Rec Hall court under dozens of national championship banners mostly earned by PSU's highly successful women's volleyball team.

Patch was leading the way, as usual. He kicked off the lightheartedness by saying it was nice to finally meet Vinnie Lopes, author of a popular college men's volleyball blog at offtheblockblog.com, after Lopes asked a question. At one point during the proceedings, the well-coiffed pair compared hair products and Patch invited the reporter over to BYU's team hotel to admire each other's hair. Yeah, that's something you don't normally hear, or see, at an NCAA news conference.

Patch also drew laughter for saying "thanks for mentioning that" when I reminded him that he didn't play real well the last time BYU and Long Beach State met — in mid-January at The Beach. BYU won the first match 3-1 and LBSU won the second match 3-0, but Patch struggled in both.

On Wednesday, he said he wasn't feeling well that weekend and took some medication that made him feel worse.

There was also plenty of laughter when Patch was asked to compare the personalties of the Sanders brothers — Brenden and Taylor. Of course, Taylor Sander was a four-time All-American at BYU and now plays professionally in Italy.

"I dunno, someone just has a better game with the ladies," Patch said, nodding toward Brenden. I wonder if that little remark will get back to older brother, an Olympics hopeful.

Unfortunately, Brenden Sanders said, one of his favorites, his grandmother, won't be coming to State College for the matches and therefore won't be bringing the juice that she serves to BYU players (and some lucky media members) before matches at Smith Fieldhouse.

"She wasn't able to get out here, but she would have made it if she was able to get out here," Sander said, proudly.

Lopes also asked coach Shawn Olmstead why he isn't sporting a mustache like he did when the BYU women's team that he coached made it all the way to the NCAA championship match in 2014.

Olmstead outlined the history of that decision, then said the novelty just simply ran its course and is something he and that team can always have as a memory of an improbable run.

As for being thousands of miles away from home, Olmstead said the Cougars will treat this like any other road trip. That means just business as usual, with not a lot of sightseeing, if any at all. The Cougars will participate in a banquet at Beaver Stadium, the 108,000-seat home of the Penn State football team, on Wednesday night. But other than that, they will spend time at their hotel room — Day's Inn — preparing for LBSU and watching film.

"These guys know how to travel," Olmstead said, noting that the Cougars lost just one road match all season. "They've done a phenomenal job of that."

Coincidentally, that sole loss came at Long Beach State. But nobody in blue was talking about that on Wednesday. There was too much laughter going on in the other Happy Valley.