NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship

NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship

Tournament information
Established	2001
Teams	9
Website	NCAA.com
Current champion
UCLA Bruins

The NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship has existed since the 2001 season. Seven conferences have teams competing in women's water polo: the Big West Conference, the Collegiate Water Polo Association (CWPA), the single-sport Golden Coast Conference, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC), the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF), the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and the Western Water Polo Association (WWPA). Some teams compete at Division III either as members of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference or independently. Teams qualify by either winning their respective conference tournament or receiving one of the few at large bids available. Unlike most NCAA sports, only one National Collegiate championship is held each season with teams from Division I, Division II, and Division III competing together.

Stanford is the most successful program with 9 championships; UCLA has eight; with USC having six. One of these three California-based Pac-12 Conference schools has won the championship every year since women's water polo became an NCAA sport in 2001.^[1]

While the tournament often includes teams from around the country, most programs are located within the state of California, and no school from outside California has ever surpassed third place or participated in the NCAA Women's Water Polo Championship game. Indeed, only twice has a school other than Stanford, UCLA, or USC participated in the championship game: Loyola Marymount who lost to USC in 2004 and California (the other California-based Pac-12 school) who lost to Stanford in 2011.^[1]