Michigan Seeded Sixth in NCAA Championship, Matched Against Cal
4/30/2018 8:22:00 PM | Water Polo
• NCAA Bracket | Tournament Central
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. --Â The University of Michigan water polo team officially heard its name called for the NCAA Tournament on Monday (April 30) during the NCAA selection show after earning an automatic bid by winning the CWPA Championship the previous day.
The NCAA matched the sixth-seeded Wolverines with No. 3 seed California in the quarterfinal round at 5:15 p.m. PDT Friday, May 11, at USC's Uytengsu Aquatics Center in Los Angeles, California. The two teams faced off against each other once this season, an 11-10 Cal win on Feb. 3 at the Stanford Invitational.
The Wolverines have a nation-best 32 wins (32-8) and will make their eighth NCAA appearance. U-M has a 6-12 record in its NCAA history, finishing as high as fourth at the 2002 and 2016 championships. The Wolverines most recently lost to No. 3 USC in the first round last year after making the NCAA semifinals in 2016.
Michigan is coming off its third consecutive CWPA championship, having defeated No. 10 Princeton, 11-8, in the final game. Junior Julia Sellers was named tournament MVP and was joined by sophomore Maddy Steere on the all-tournament first team. The two were also All-CWPA first team selections and are the team's top two goal scorers in 2018.
Automatic qualifiers were awarded to No. 1 USC (23-1) from the MPSF, No. 7 Pacific (17-7) from the Golden Coast Conference, No. 9 UC Irvine (14-13) from the Big West, No. 10 Michigan (32-8) from the CWPA, No. 12 UC San Diego (24-11) from the WWPA, No. 18 Wagner (24-6) from the MAAC, and the No. 1 team in Division III, Pomona-Pitzer (22-10) from the SCIAC.
The at-large selections include No. 2 Stanford (18-3) from the MPSF, No. 3 Cal (19-5) from the MPSF and No. 4 UCLA (22-7) from the MPSF.
Michigan has a 3-6 record in 2018 against the other nine teams in the NCAA field with two wins over UC San Diego and one against Wagner. U-M lost three times to Pacific, twice to UCLA and once to Cal.
