In most people's view UCLA should have been the 16th seed. They are ranked 16 and at the time of the draw had just beaten Ohio State in Ohio to win the Big Ten Championship. But the NCAA formula for determining the order of teams bumped them out of the seedings. The committee have no discretion to go against the formula in allocating seedings.

They struggled at the beginning of the season, depending on your point of view scheduling too aggressively or not arranging enough matches against mid ranked teams in addition to what they did play. They were 2-6 at the end of February having played opposition who are currently all bar 1 top 26 teams. They are 17-2 since. The match that lost them the 16th seed though was back in January, in the R1 match at the Kick off weekend that they lost 3-4 against, ironically, Texas A&M who, from the NCAA formula, got the 16 seed off UCLA. H2H is one of the criteria in the NCAA formula for deciding the order of teams.

Their win at the regional final last weekend against California was more notable than beating USC this weekend. Once San Diego were knocked out of their section and they got home advantage against USC, another unseeded team and ranked lower than them, they were favourites to get to the QF from their section.