BERKELEY – A strong run in the Pac-12 Championship helped to propel the California men's tennis team to an at-large berth to the 64-team NCAA Championship field, which the NCAA announced on Monday. The 14-12 Golden Bears will play Drake (19-13) in the first round on Friday at 1 p.m. CT at 15th-seeded/15th-ranked Illinois, with the host and Big Ten runner-up Illinis (18-8) facing Western Michigan (18-8), the Mid-American Conference champion, at the Atkins Tennis Center in Urbana, Illinois.
 
Cal - ranked 33rd - heads into NCAAs with some momentum having won three of its last four matches, including a 4-0 blanking of host Oregon to end the regular season, a 4-1 Pac-12 quarterfinal win over Arizona State and a 4-1 upset of No. 13 (and top-seeded) UCLA in the Pac-12 semifinals.
 
"Our team is looking forward to playing in Illinois this weekend," said Peter Wright, Cal's Director of Men's Tennis. "Being selected for the NCAAs is an honor, and our team has been working hard to prepare for the postseason. Drake is a solid team, and we're excited to play them. We're familiar with the site at Illinois, and we know it's a great college tennis venue. Overall, our team is prepared and excited to face the challenges that lie ahead."
 
The Bears have a 1-0 record in the all-time series with Drake, the Summit League champion that brings a 19-13 record into the first-round match. Cal has a 2-4 record against Illinois – including a 4-0 loss at Illinois last season – and has a 1-0 record against Western Michigan, with the Bears beating the Mustangs this season, 4-0, on Jan. 27. The two first-round winners will meet in the second round on Saturday or Sunday for the right to advance to one of eight super regionals, or rounds of 16, which will take place May 10-11 at sites TBA.
 
After the round of 16, the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida, will host the remainder of the NCAA team tournament from May 16-19. The USTA National Campus will also host the NCAA singles and doubles tournaments from May 20-25.
 
Please click here for the NCAA team tournament bracket and here for more information about the tournament.
 
Cal has now reached the NCAA team tournament 20 consecutive times under Wright, who is in his 26th season in charge of his alma mater. Last season, Cal defeated N.C. State, 4-1, in the NCAA first round before falling to host Texas in the second round, 4-0. Also last year, the Bears sent Billy Griffith to the NCAA Singles Championship and the team of Griffith and J.T. Nishimura to the NCAA doubles tournament in Winston-Salem, N.C.
 
This year's Cal team features strong doubles teams including the 31st-ranked duo of sophomore Jacob Brumm and freshman Yuta Kikuchi (15-14 record) and the sophomore pair of Can Kaya and Paul Barretto (24-5), which spent much of the season in the Oracle ITA Rankings. Kikuchi also posted a 19-14 singles record after playing much of the season at court-one singles. Sophomore Ben Draper, who has a 17-9 singles record, was on a 13-match winning streak until suffering a loss in Cal's Pac-12 semifinal win over UCLA on April 26.
 
Cal – the Pac-12 tournament runner-up – is one of seven Pac-12 Conference teams to reach the NCAA Championship, including eighth-seeded Pac-12 champion USC, 11th-seeded UCLA, 12th-seeded Stanford, Arizona, Utah and Arizona State.