UCLA Selected as No. 1 Seed for NCAA Championship
November 19, 2017 | Men's Water Polo
The Bruins will play in the first semifinal on Dec. 2 at 3:00 p.m. PT at USC.
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LOS ANGELES – The UCLA men's water polo team (19-4) has earned the No. 1 seed at the 2017 NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship at USC on Dec. 2-3. The Bruins will be seeking their 11th NCAA title in the sport and the school's 114th overall.
Six teams earned automatic selections to this year's NCAA Championships by winning their respective conference tournaments. They include USC (Mountain Pacific Sports Federation), Harvard (Northeast Water Polo Conference), George Washington (Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference), Pacific (Golden Coast Conference), UC Davis (Western Water Polo Association) and Pomona-Pitzer (Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference).
The other two teams were selected based on at-large criteria and that resulted in UCLA and California earning at-large bids and the top two seeds.
The Bruins are set up with an NCAA semifinal slot and will face the winner of the three teams that will face off in the opening rounds. Fifth-seeded Pacific (19-5) will square off with eighth-seeded Pomona-Pitzer (24-10) in the first game of the opening round at Pacific on Nov. 25. The winner will advance to play fourth-seeded UC Davis (22-6) at USC on Nov. 30. The winner of that game will face No. 1 UCLA at 3:00 p.m. PT on Dec. 2 in the first semifinal.
On the other side of the bracket, sixth-seeded Harvard (23-7) will take on seventh-seeded George Washington (17-11) in the second game of the opening round at Harvard on Nov. 25. The winner of that contest will play at third-seeded USC (25-3) on Nov. 30. The winner of that second-round game will face second-seeded California (20-3) in the second semifinal on Dec. 2 at 5:15 p.m. PT. The 2017 national championship game will be held at 3 p.m. PT on Dec. 3.
The Bruins are 8-2 on the year against the NCAA Championship field, holding a 2-1 record against USC and California and a 2-0 mark against Pacific. The Bruins have also defeated Pomona-Pitzer and George Washington this season.
