Bodies Of Water

 

Quick question: Who is the only unbeaten team in college men's water polo this season? 

Hint - the team is the No. 3 seed in the upcoming NCAA tournament, which begins Friday, Dec. 6, with four matches at Stanford. The second of those four matches, by the way, will see Princeton take on the fourth seeded host team.

If you watched the NCAA Selection Show yesterday, then you saw the answer. TigerBlog was a bit surprised to see it.

The answer? Fordham, who brings a 31-0 record into the postseason. The third-seeded Rams will be taking on Long Beach State in the opening round.

A long time ago, like 88 years ago, Fordham football had an offensive line nicknamed "The Seven Blocks Of Granite." Most of those seven men went into coaching after they were done playing, including the most famous of the group, Vince Lombardi.

When TB thinks of Fordham athletics, he always thinks of the Seven Blocks first. Then he thought about the 31-0 team this year and thought — that would be a terrible nickname for water polo. Blocks of granite? 

Yes, there are seven players in the pool at any given time, so that part works. The other part? 

This is a sport that requires a lot of treading water. Blocks of granite wouldn't be great at that. How about the Seven Balloons of granite? No, no. Blocks of balloons? Let TB work on it.

Fordham defeated Princeton 12-9 back on Sept. 27. Since Fordham and Princeton are on opposite sides of the draw, TB is now rooting for a Rams-Tigers rematch in the championship game. 

Fordham improved to 31-0 by beating Luis Nicolao and Navy in the final of the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Conference final 18-11. Princeton also won its league title Sunday as well, taking the Northeast Water Polo Conference title match.

Brown took down Harvard 11-9 in the semifinals to reach the final for the first time since 2016. That would be as far as the Bears would get, though, because Princeton is playing on another level right now.

The final score of the championship game was 17-6, and it earned the Tigers their own automatic NCAA bid. This was the fourth straight league title for Princeton, by the way. 

Including the semifinal win over Iona, Princeton outscored its two NWPC opponents by a combined 39-17. The Tigers bring an eight-match winning streak to California, and none of those eight wins has been closer than four goals.

TB watched the Selection Show yesterday. It was hosted by Jeremiah Johnson, which was a familiar name. From where? It was the title of a Robert Redford movie in the 1970s.

This was the perfect Selection Show. The entire thing took six minutes, and there was no need to come up with any kind of filler or anything like. Ironically, the shows for sports that are done on ncaa.com are much tighter and way better for the teams involved than the ones that are stretched out for network television. 

UCLA is the No. 1 seed in the tournament. USC, who beat UCLA in the final of their conference tournament, was the No. 2 seed, followed by Fordham and Stanford. To give you a sense of what kind of accomplishment it is for Fordham to have gotten this seed, consider that, in a tournament that began 55 years ago, the other three seeds have combined for 33 national titles.

The bracket has UCLA against Salem (West Virginia), who is making its first NCAA appearance. The winner of that match will take on the winner of the Princeton-Stanford match that follows. 

The other side has USC against California Baptist and Fordham against Long Beach State. The entire tournament will be held in three days, from Dec. 6-8.

Princeton defeated Long Beach State 14-12 during the regular season. It also has two losses to UCLA, one in overtime and one by two goals. Princeton also lost 10-7 to USC, meaning that Stanford is the only seeded team the Tigers haven't played this year. 

Princeton reached the NCAA semifinals a year ago, taking down UC-Irvine 12-7 in the quarterfinals before falling 17-13 to UCLA.

Meanwhile, back at the nickname ... hmmm ... hey, TB's got it:

Bodies of Water. The Seven Bodies of Water. 

Perfect.