USC volleyball coach Bill Ferguson has 20/20 vision in one eye, 20/40 in the other. His volleyball vision is 2015.

When asked if he was surprised about the Trojans’ start — 7-0 overall and 6-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation entering Wednesday’s match at Hawaii — Ferguson said, "To a degree, no. I don’t mean it in an arrogant way. We have guys who are team-first, high-character guys who understand our mission and their role within that mission."

For a period through 2012, the Trojans were volleyball’s analogical equivalent of the Miami Heat, with a big three of Murphy Troy, Tri Bourne and Tony Ciarelli. In the sport’s economics — a team splits the equivalent of 4.5 scholarships — Ferguson and his staff realized they needed to embrace another model. USC transformed into the New England Patriots, with the talent and scholarship spread evenly.

"We have arguably the best quarterback and a bunch of guys who really understand our offense and defense and how it is we have to play to be our best," Ferguson said.

The "quarterback" is senior Micah Christenson, a Kamehameha graduate who is the nation’s best setter.

Last summer, Christenson was the starting setter for the U.S. national team that won the FIVB World League gold medal. He was the only collegian on the American squad.

Ferguson said it was obvious Christenson had "God-given athletic ability," as a setter despite being used mostly as a pin hitter as a Kamehameha senior. It was during junior national training in Ohio — Christenson set for one team, Ferguson coached another — that a behind-the-scenes view was offered.

"It was more the non-volleyball stuff," Ferguson recalled. "Micah just did his things. … He was very professional about how he carried himself. That was the part that really jumped off the page for me. We knew he had the ability to be an exceptional setter. It was the way he ran his team."

USC, which is hitting .323, has rotated five perimeter hitters at the three positions. Punahou graduate Larry "Tui" Tuileta is the primary reserve at left-side hitter.

"He’s been able to make a pretty good difference in a pretty short period of time," Ferguson said, noting Tuileta started against Stanford and came off the bench to help defeat UC Irvine.

Tuileta, a scout quarterback on the football team, was eligible to switch sports following the Holiday Bowl on Dec. 27. But Ferguson encouraged Tuileta to go ahead with plans to return to Hawaii for a few days.

"We felt he needed to reconnect with his family and get a little bit of a break," Ferguson said. "I knew he needed it. … We felt it would be better (joining the volleyball team) later than grinding it all the way through, and it turned out good. He was itching to play volleyball from the get-go."