UCLA received the top seed in the NCAA beach volleyball tournament Sunday while two-time defending champion USC was seeded third in the 17-team tournament.
Loyola Marymount (28-8) was seeded sixth after winning the West Coast Conference tournament for the fourth consecutive time. Long Beach State (24-14) was seeded ninth after winning the Big West Conference tournament for the first time.
On Friday, UCLA (37-3) will play the winner of Wednesday’s play-in match between 16th-seeded UT-Martin (26-8), the Ohio Valley Conference tournament champion, and 17th-seeded Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (24-9), the Southland Conference tournament champion.
The Bruins defeated California, 3-0, in the final of the Pac-12 Conference tournament Friday to assure themselves of a berth in the NCAA tournament.
USC (28-5) received one of the eight at-large berths in the tournament, and will face Georgia State (20-16), the Sun Belt Conference tournament champion, on Friday.
Loyola Marymount will face 11th-seeded Hawaii (27-8) on Friday. The BeachBows received an at-large berth after losing to Cal Poly, 3-2, in the elimination bracket finals of the Big West Conference tournament April 22.
The Lions defeated Hawaii, 3-0, in the opening round of last year’s NCAA tournament.
Long Beach State will face eighth-seeded California, (28-9), which received an at-large berth after finishing second in the Pac-12 Conference tournament.
The tournament will be played in Gulf Shores, Alabama, through next Sunday.
USC and UCLA have combined to win all six NCAA beach volleyball tournaments. The Trojans won the 2016 and 2017 tournaments while UCLA won in 2018 and 2019. The 2020 tournament was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic.