Men's Water Polo

California Baptist Will Meet USC In NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship

Lancers and Trojans will battle on Dec. 6 at 4 p.m. PT at Stanford

SAN BRUNO, Calif. – West Coast Conference Men’s Water Polo Tournament champion California Baptist will face No. 4 seed USC in the opening round of the NCAA Division I Men’s Water Polo Championship, the NCAA announced on Monday.
 
The No. 16-ranked Lancers and the No. 3-ranked Trojans will face off at 4:00 p.m. PT on Friday, Dec. 6 at Avery Aquatic Center on the campus of Stanford University. USC defeated top-ranked UCLA in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation Tournament title game on Sunday to earn the MPSF’s automatic bid. The CBU-USC game will be live streamed on NCAA.com. The NCAA Championship will run Dec. 6-8 at Stanford, with the national championship game on Sunday, Dec. 8 on ESPNU.  

The winner of Friday’s match between California Baptist and USC will advance to the NCAA semifinals on Saturday, Dec. 7, at 4:00 p.m. PT against either Fordham or Long Beach State.
 
The Lancers (23-12) earned one of six automatic bids to the NCAA Championship after defeating No. 17 Santa Clara, No. 5 Pacific and No. 13 San Jose State in three consecutive days to secure the WCC Tournament title this past Sunday. California Baptist and USC are joined by automatic qualifiers Princeton, Fordham, Long Beach State and Salem. UCLA and Stanford received at-large selections to the eight-team NCAA Championship field.  
 
This will be California Baptist’s second time competing in the NCAA Championship. The Lancers, who joined the West Coast Conference as an affiliate member last year, previously earned an NCAA bid by winning the 2020 Western Water Polo Association tournament title. The 2020 season was contested in the spring of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CBU received a five seed in its previous NCAA appearance, where it dropped a 19-14 decision to No. 4 seed UCLA in the opening round of the 2020 NCAA Championship.
 
Last season, in the first year the WCC sponsored men’s water polo, San Jose State faced No. 3 seed USC in the NCAA Men’s Water Polo Championship, dropping an 18-10 decision to the Trojans in Los Angeles.
 
The WCC entered Monday’s selections as the top-ranked conference in men’s water polo in the NCAA’s ratings percentage index, led by No. 2 Pacific. In all, six of seven WCC teams were ranked in the top-20 of the latest Collegiate Water Polo Association poll.