Pac-12 lands national-best three teams in NCAA Beach Volleyball field

NCAA BRACKET | NCAA CHAMPIONSHIPS INFO

SAN FRANCISCO - The Pac-12 Conference will lead the way to the inaugural NCAA Beach Volleyball Championship as a national-best three member programs earned bids during Sunday night's Selection Show.

AVCA Top 10 programs No. 1 USC (30-2), No. 4 UCLA (19-6) and No. 6 ARIZONA (19-5) all secured berths in the eight-team field. The second seeded Trojans and fourth seeded Bruins were awarded two of the three berths from the West Region, while the sixth seeded Wildcats received one of the two available at-large selections.

USC, which claimed the first-ever Pac-12 Championship team title on Sunday, will face No. 7 seed Georgia State (26-8), UCLA will battle No. 5 seed Hawai'i (16-8) and ARIZONA will take on No. 3 seed Pepperdine (19-3) in the first round of the double-elimination event. No. 1 overall seed Florida State (29-1) will face Stetson (28-7) in the other opening round match.

The three Pac-12 programs are a combined 20-12 against teams in this year's NCAA field (USC - 12-2, UCLA - 6-6, ARIZONA - 2-4). The other five participants are a combined 13-21 versus the field (FSU - 5-1, GSU - 1-5, UH - 2-8, PEPP - 5-3, STET - 0-4).

The inaugural championship will be held Friday through Sunday, May 6-8, from Gulf Shores, Ala. Turner Networks will televise the event, with truTV providing live coverage on Friday, May 6, and Saturday, May 7, from 3-6 p.m. ET and the championship round airing on TBS on Sunday, May 8, at 2 p.m.

Live streaming coverage of every court in each match of the tournament will be available on NCAA.com. In addition, the full television broadcast will be available on Turner’s TV Everywhere platforms including the Watch TBS and Watch truTV apps.

Turner’s coverage of the event will feature the same Pac-12 Networks broadcast team from the Pac-12 Championships as Anne Marie Anderson will handle play-by-play duties and Olympic medalist Holly McPeak will provide analysis.

Beach volleyball is the fastest-growing NCAA sport with 60 sponsoring schools. The addition of the beach volleyball championship becomes the 45th NCAA championship administered for women.