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There’s so much more to competitive sports than simply stepping on the court, playing a game, and going home.

There’s practice, films, team meetings, road trips, those cute little halftime orange slices and the requisite after-game Capri Sun.

But there’s also a special little thing called gamesmanship.

Gamesmanship is the psychological aspect that makes sports fun. It is what keeps people interested.

Gamesmanship is Gary Payton talking trash every second of his life. It is Magic Johnson and Larry Bird involved in a never-ending game of oneupsmanship. It is coaches like USC track and field’s Ron Allice putting on a routine for the media in an attempt to motivate his athletes.

And it is UCLA volleyball coach

Al Scates making unfounded accusations about opposing teams.

Remember reading all that stuff in the newspaper about Scates calling players on the BYU team cheaters? Yeah, that was gamesmanship.

First Scates speculated about the ineligibility of BYU senior opposite hitter Joe Hillman, who is in his sixth year playing collegiate volleyball. Scates later said that he believed Cougar players Carlos Moreno and Fernando Pessoa had taken money playing volleyball in Brazil and thus were ineligible to compete as amateurs.

What ensued was a large outcry in the volleyball community. Scates was condemned by many fans and coaches for making unsubstantiated claims regarding the eligibility of other players. People were demanding that UCLA quit its whining and simply play volleyball.

But the gamesmanship hasn’t stopped. On Wednesday, UCLA assistant coach Brian Rofer issued a statement to the Daily Bruin reasserting the questionable nature of Hillman’s eligibility.

Regarding this whole mess, I’ve heard Scates called arrogant, presumptuous and pompous. And maybe he is.

But what I haven’t heard him called is very, very smart.

Until now.

It’s true that no one really knows what Al Scates is thinking, but it never hurts to speculate. And my speculation is that all the seemingly stupid, boneheaded, ignorant statements Scates made about opposing players were premeditated, a series of coaching ploys intended to make things easier for his team. At its heart, it’s gamesmanship at its finest.

That gamesmanship takes center stage tonight as the Bruin volleyball team faces Long Beach State in the belly of the beast – Provo, Utah – the home of BYU.

Odds are that only a handful of the fans in attendance, maybe even fewer, will be rooting for UCLA tonight. And that might be all well and good. By doing what he has done, Scates has taken the attention off his players. The attention of opposing coaches and players is fixed on Scates.

The team, meanwhile, has continued to go on about its business as usual. In fact, the third-ranked Bruins came out and played arguably their best match of the season Saturday against Hawai’i.

And if they are fortunate enough to win tonight, the drama of another battle with BYU awaits.

If that match were to actually come about, it’s safe to say that all the pressure would be on the Cougars. They’re the ones with the No. 1 ranking. They’re the ones who have had their eligibility questioned. If anything, this is much more of a distraction for BYU than it is for the Bruins. Assuming everything is fine with the eligibility of the Cougars, which the NCAA says it is, this fact has to be weighing heavily on their minds. And that’s probably what Scates intended.

In sports, it’s a lot easier to play with no pressure or expectations.

It wouldn’t surprise me if Scates doesn’t really care either way about the eligibility of these players. I think he simply saw an opportunity to make things easier for his team, and he took it.

It’s gamesmanship.

E-mail Regan at dregan@media.ucla.edu.