No. 1 UCLA Earns Top Seed for 2024 NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship

INDIANAPOLIS -- No. 1 UCLA has been awarded the top seed for the 2024 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship as announced by the NCAA Women's Water Polo Committee on Monday evening.

The nine teams that will be vying for the 2024 National Collegiate Women's Water Polo Championship include seven teams that were placed in the bracket and the remaining two teams will compete for the last berth in the bracket via an opening-round game on May 8.

The opening-round game will be contested May 8, hosted by California, which will also host the championship to be held May 10-12. The first round, semifinal and championship games will be played at Spieker Aquatics Complex in Berkeley, Calif. The 2024 championship will be an eight-team, single-elimination tournament.

In the opening-round game on May 8, Wagner (29-4) will play Biola (14-16), with the winner advancing to the championship bracket to play the undefeated Bruins (23-0) in Game 1 on Friday, May 10 at 12:00 p.m. PT. Rounding out the bracket will be No. 4 Stanford (18-6) facing USC (18-8) in Game 2, No. 2 Hawai'i (22-3) competing against Princeton (23-6) in Game 3 and No. California (17-6) taking on Fresno State (21-7) in Game 4. Please reference the bracket for all game times.

Conferences receiving automatic qualification include the Big West Conference, Collegiate Water Polo Association, Golden Coast Conference, Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Mountain Pacific Sports Federation and the Western Water Polo Association. The remaining three teams were selected at-large without geographical restrictions (USC, Stanford, and California).

The first round and semifinal games will be streamed on ncaa.com. The national championship will take place at 7:00 p.m. PDT/10:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday, May 12 on ESPNU.

This is UCLA's 22nd appearance in the NCAA Championship and 28th overall Championship appearance. The Bruins have won 11 national titles, seven of which are NCAA Championships. UCLA enters the 2024 NCAA Championship with an all-time record of 42-14 (.750) in NCAA Tournament games. Last year the Bruins opened up the 2023 NCAA Championship with an 14-12 win over UC Irvine before falling to the eventual National Champions, Stanford, 14-9.

INTERACTIVE BRACKET: The full schedule for the 2024 tournament