After over two months of games, the Bruins face missing out on the NCAA tournament.
No. 2 UCLA men’s water polo (20-3, 1-2 MPSF) wrapped up its regular season Saturday with a loss against No. 1 USC (28-1, 2-1). The Bruins fell 12-11 – their second loss by one goal this year.
The Bruins had a perfect record at Spieker Aquatics Center and at neutral sites. UCLA, however, finished 5-3 on the road with its only win by more than four goals coming against No. 17 Princeton.
Senior attacker Austin Rone said the team has been improving on the road throughout the season and is keeping the team’s progress going with the remaining games all coming away from Westwood.
“I think today was a good step forward,” Rone said. “Twelve goals is a lot, so we want to try to work on our defense moving forward and hopefully keep that number down while still being consistent on the offensive end.”
UCLA posted a 2-3 record against their Big Four rivals – USC, No. 3 Stanford and No. 4 California – during the regular season. All three of the Bruins’ losses were on the road, where they were outscored by four goals combined.
Coach Adam Wright said his team is focused on upgrading its game in the time between the conclusion of the regular season and the start of the MPSF tournament Friday.
“The big thing is we can get caught up in all the seeding,” Wright said. “Now we know who we’re playing in the conference tournament, but it’s going to come back to us.”
UCLA received the fourth seed for the MPSF tournament after finishing 1-2 in conference. Last season, the Bruins also finished 1-2 in conference and had the third seed, finishing second in the tournament to the fourth-seeded Trojans in the championship game.
The Bruins will either need to win the conference tournament, or perform well enough to receive one of the two at-large bids from the selection committee in order to make the NCAA tournament.
Wright said his team is recovering and studying its possible opponents before its upcoming matches.
“The biggest thing is giving these guys some rest,” Wright said. “We’ll have to go back and watch the video, but our five-on-six and six-on-five, we’ve got to clean that up for sure.”
The Bruins had postseason success last year at Uytengsu Aquatics Center. They won against the then-No. 5 Pacific Tigers in the semifinals before downing the Trojans in the national championship game.
UCLA also ended its 2017 season 5-3 against the Big Four. This year’s Bruins would need three more wins in order to match that record.
Freshman attacker Jake Cavano said the Bruins need to work on every facet of their game in order to emulate last year’s postseason success.
“Probably every aspect of the game,” Cavano said. “We have to focus on all of the little things on offense, defense, transition, transition (defense), six-on-five.”