Fordham & Princeton Out West for NCAAs: Can The East Make the Finals?

The 2025 men’s water polo season is heating up, with the NCAA Men’s Water Polo tournament beginning today at Stanford’s Avery Aquatics Center.

As always, West Coast teams are favored for a national title, as they’ve been for more than five decades. Three of the so-called “Big Four:” #1 USC, #2, UCLA and #3 Stanford are at the top of the eight team bracket for this year’s championship.

In fact, up until a few years ago, only California teams would be seeded at the top of the tournament bracket. It took until 2023—and a format change instituted in 2013 that eventually expanded the men’s field from four to eight qualifiers—for an Eastern team to be seeded as high as fourth. That distinction belongs to Princeton, which knocked off #8 seed UC Irvine before dropping a 17-13 semifinal decision to eventual runner up UCLA.

For the past two seasons, New York City-based Fordham (25-3) has followed the Tigers example. In 2024 the Rams enjoyed an unprecedented run to NCAAs, compiling a 32-0 record before dropping a 18-16 decision to USC in an NCAA semifinal. They got to that match thanks to a #4 seed and a quarterfinal win over #8 Long Beach State.

This year Fordham again achieved a #4 seed and with it a match today against a lower seeded team, fifth-seeded San Jose State (14-7). A win will almost certainly advance the Rams to another semifinal meeting with USC (21-3), the top-seeded team in the NCAA draw by virtue of a fourth-straight Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) tournament title. First though the Trojans will need to knock off eighth-seeded Concordia University Irvine. The Eagles (21-12), the 2025 Western Water Polo Association (WWPA) champs, are making their very first NCAA tournament appearance.

Princeton is no slouch this year. The Tigers (23-9) enjoyed an unprecedented season of their own; they won a fifth-straight Northeast Water Polo Conference (NWPC) title to again advance to NCAAs. As the #7 seed, they will face #2 UCLA (24-2; defending NCAA champions) today. In 21 previous meetings the Tigers, coached by former UCLA assistant, Dustin Litvak, have never won. The closest they came to victory was a 7-5 overtime loss in a 2004 NCAA semifinal.

Host Stanford (17-7) will play UC Davis (14-12) in the other quarterfinal match.

If either Fordham or Princeton advances to Sunday’s championship match, it will be the first time an Eastern team has played for a national title. In 56 years of NCAA tournament play, no team outside of California has played in the final. And the likelihood that an MPSF will win it all is almost assured; Stanford (11), UCLA (13 including 2024) and USC (10) have captured 34 titles. Fellow MPSF member Cal has won the most (17, most all-time); the Bears did not qualify this year. It’s only the third time (2025, 2024, 2020) that Cal did not play for a national title.

Really, does the East have a chance?

The informed answer is no. Based upon head-to-head competition the Rams should advance against the Spartans by virtue of a 10-9 win in San Jose on October 26th. They would then face USC for the first time this season and the third time ever. The previous two meetings, including last year, were losses.

[On The Record: Fordham’s Brian Bacharach Talks Princeton Rivalry, NCAA Tournament]

Besides their loss to UCLA earlier this year, Princeton also faced USC in Los Angeles. It was a spirited Tiger performance that ended up 15-13 in favor of the host Trojans, an outcome that suggests Fordham—who beat Princeton twice this year—would play USC tough if they advance to Saturday’s semifinal. The Rams have an explosive lineup;  they’ve demonstrated repeatedly that their speed, shooting and ability to create counterattacks is superior to almost every team they’ve faced. Andras Toth, the most skilled player on Head Coach Brian Bacharach’s roster, has no equal in the East and few in collegiate competition.

Add in the rest of Fordham’s starting seven—Balazs Berenyi, Barnabas Eppel, Luca Provenziani, Alessandro Salipante, Luca Silvestri and Matthew Bonello DuPuis, a graduate student who’s emerged as Bacharach’s best goalie option—and there’s enough talent to give any of the Big Four a spirited match in an NCAA final. The Rams have already done so, pushing Cal in a match last month before dropping a 15-14 decision in Berkeley. The question is: can they win when the brightest spotlight, the NCAA Tournament, is focused on them.

Fordham has the horses

One observer who can best assess Fordham’s chances is Jack Ehrhardt. Currently an assistant with Brown’s men’s program, Ehrhardt—who starred for USC from 2019 until 2022, including a 2018 NCAA title—believes the Rams have the talent to compete against the best of the West.

“They're definitely capable,” the former USC and national team standout said after Fordham beat Brown 23-13 last month in the Bronx. “They have the talent to win a semifinal game and potentially go further.”

In Ehrhardt's view, a lack of familiarity benefits the Rams; California teams play each other all the time, but they rarely see teams from the East.

“The benefit is that teams on the West Coast have not seen them so much,” he explained, then added, “No team is perfect, but I think they've got enough players to be competitive in the last two minutes of a semifinal game. At that point you never know what's going to happen, but they have a chance.”

Princeton: not so much

A feature of this Tiger season is the level of competition they’ve faced: pro clubs (and previous Champions League winners) Ferencvaros and Pro Recco; UCLA, USC, Fordham (twice), Pepperdine (twice) and Long Beach State, to name a few. In September they traveled to California for the Overnight Invitational, which features the country’s best teams—though Fordham declined to participate. Princeton made a second West Coast trip in October; outside of the MPSF, the Tigers played one of the NCAA’s most competitive schedules.

[On The Record: Princeton’s Dustin Litvak]

The Tigers cannot go player for player with their East Coast rival, but do have the second-best roster on this coast, anchored by junior goalie Kristof Kovacs, who might be the East’s top netminder. He’s joined by Gavin Appeldorn, Taylor Bell, Finn LeSieur, Logan McCarroll, JP Ohl and Adam Peocz. They no longer have sharpshooter Roko Pozaric (281 career goals, all-time program best) who powered the Tigers to four NCAA tournaments before graduating last spring.

Litvak will have his team prepared for his old boss, UCLA Head Coach Adam Wright, and a Bruin squad (24-2) that this season dominated everyone except archrival USC, who tagged them with their only two losses. If it were the Trojans the Tigers were facing in the quarterfinal, they’d have a chance. But facing the mighty Bruins and their two Olympians—Chase and Ryder Dodd—is simply too much for any Eastern program, even one that has prepared as well as Princeton has for this moment.

At the end, referees may decide the Rams’ fate

As for Fordham, if they’re properly prepared they should advance to another meeting with USC. And, despite graduating several key players from the 2024 that was the best in program history, one Fordham watcher thinks this year’s squad is primed for a run to the finals.

Chris Judge, a member of Fordham’s Hall of Fame for his exploits as a player from 1976-79, has no doubt that his beloved Rams have more than enough talent to succeed where last year’s team did not.

“Last year we had seven strong players, then it fell off steeply after that,” Judge said last month at Fordham. “Now we have eight or nine really strong players, so we got guys coming off the bench.”

Asked about last year’s result—perhaps the East’s best-ever chance to make a final—Judge pointed to refereeing which wore the Rams out almost as much as the Trojans.

“What happened against USC? We got into foul trouble. We just didn't have the horses at the end of the game,” Judge said, then added: “Our depth is much better and as long as the goalie keeps progressing, we're going to be fine.”

One of the greatest Rams in their history is spot on; the biggest obstacle for Fordham may be West Coast officials' lack of familiarity with Eastern programs. Even if the talents of Toth and Provenziani are equal to San Jose State’s and USC’s players, will they still be in the water when the game is on the line?

If they are, then the Rams will have climbed the biggest polo mountain the East has known: playing for an national championship.