The 2023 NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship occurred from December 1–3, 2023, in Los Angeles, California at the Uytengsu Aquatics Center and hosted by the University of Southern California. This was the 55th NCAA Men's Water Polo Championship. Eight teams participated in this championship. Before the 2023 season, the tournament was approved to expand to nine teams, though the Southern California Athletic Conference (SCAC) chose to decline its automatic bid. This cancellation eliminated the opening-round play-in game and kept the final tournament bracket at eight teams. The California Golden Bears were the defending national champions.

Qualifying teams Six conferences were granted automatic qualification to the championship: Big West Conference (Big West), Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference (MAWPC), Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC), West Coast Conference (WCC), and the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA). Two additional teams earned entry into the tournament with at-large bids, with both of them coming from the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.

Seed Team Conference Bid type Appearance1 UCLA MPSF At-large 38th2 California MPSF At-large 33rd3 Southern California MPSF Automatic 38th4 Princeton NWPC Automatic 9th Biola WWPA Automatic 1st Fordham MAWPC Automatic 3rd San Jose State WCC Automatic 5th UC Irvine Big West Automatic 22nd

Schedule All times are Eastern time December 1December 1December 2December 3 First Round Games 1 & 2 First Round Games 3 & 4 Semifinals Championship 3:00 p.m. & 5:00 p.m. 7:00 p.m. & 9:00 p.m. 5:00 p.m. & 7:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m.

Bracket The championship featured a knockout format where schools that lost were eliminated from the tournament. The championship pairings were announced on Sunday, November 19, 2023 by the NCAA Men’s Water Polo Committee.

All Tournament Team After the championship, the All-NCAA Tournament First and Second teams were announced.

First Team Nikolaos Papanikolaou (Most Outstanding Player, California) Max Casabella (California) Adrian Weinberg (California) Jack Larsen (UCLA) Rafael Real Vergara (UCLA) Nassimo Di Martire (Southern California) Max Miller (Southern California)

Second Team Jack Howerton (California) Garret Griggs (UCLA) Makoto Kenney (UCLA) Jake Cavano (UCLA) Carson Kranz (Southern California) Vladan Mitrovic (Princeton) Roko Pozaric (Princeton)

References