BERKELEY – California returns to a familiar site in the NCAA Championship, with the 24th-ranked Golden Bears facing the second-ranked Texas Longhorns in Austin, Texas, on Saturday at 1 p.m. CT in the NCAA super regionals. Cal boosted its record to 16-12 after upsetting No. 15 Illinois in the NCAA round of 32 last week, while Texas improved to 25-3 after winning in the first two rounds in Austin.
 
The winner of Saturday's round of 16 match advances to the NCAA quarterfinals – and the remainder of the NCAA team tournament – at the USTA National Campus in Orlando, Florida.
 
Barring rain, the super regional will be played outdoors at the Texas Tennis Center, with a live stream available by clicking here and live scores available here. If there is rain in Austin on Saturday – and the forecast shows a 50-percent chance – then the match will be played indoors at the Weller Tennis Center. There is no indoor live stream at Texas, though indoor live scores would be available here.
 
Austin has become a semi-regular – if not ultimately a happy – postseason destination for the Bears over the last several years. Cal defeated N.C. State in last season's NCAA opening round of 64 (see below) in Austin and beat Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 4-0, in the 2015 round of 64 in the Texas state capital. But the Longhorns ended Cal's runs in the NCAA team tournament in Austin in the 2018 round of 32, 2015 round of 32 and 2014 round of 16.
 
This Bears team heads into Austin with some momentum after having won five of their last six matches, while Texas has won eight of its previous nine matches. The Longhorns' loss during that stretch came against No. 8 Baylor, 4-1, in the Big 12 tournament final.
 
Of the seven Pac-12 teams that reached the NCAA tournament, Cal is one of four conference teams remaining in the postseason. The other three are eighth-seeded USC, 11th-seeded UCLA and 12th-seeded Stanford.
 
The Bears have reached the NCAA team tournament 20 consecutive times under Director of Men's Tennis Peter Wright, who is in his 26th season in charge of the Bears. This year's Cal team features strong doubles teams including the nationally ranked duo of Brumm and Kikuchi (16-15 record) and the sophomore pair of Can Kaya and Paul Barretto (25-5), which spent much of the season in the Oracle ITA Rankings. Kikuchi also posted a 20-14 singles record after playing much of the season at court-one singles. Sophomore Ben Draper, who has an 18-10 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.
 
Please click here for the tournament bracket and here for more information about the NCAA Championship.
 
Last Time: Bears Topple Illinois In Round of 32
Cal won twice at Illinois – 4-1 over Drake in the round of 64 and 4-1 over the host Illini – to advance to the NCAA super regionals. After the postseason-opening victory over the Bulldogs on May 3, Cal came out strong in doubles against Illinois the next day to take the doubles point. The Bears clinched when sophomores Can Kaya and Paul Barretto edged Vuk Budic and Gui Gomes, 7-6(4), on court two.
 
In singles, Cal won the first set in three matches – the three the Bears would go on to win. Cal built a 3-0 lead thanks to Bjorn Hoffmann's 6-3, 6-0 victory over Budic on court six and Jack Molloy's 6-3, 6-4 upset of the 64th-ranked Alex Brown on court two. Illinois claimed its only point of the day when Cal freshman Yuta Kikuchi – trailing 7-5, 5-2 on court one – retired, giving the 10th-ranked Aleks Kovacevic the win.
 
Cal ended the match when sophomore Ben Draper defeated Siphosothando Montsi, 6-4, 7-5, at court-four singles.
 
Scouting Texas

• Texas defeated Tennessee Tech, 4-0, in the NCAA round of 64 and then beat South Florida, 4-1, in the round of 32 in Austin
• The Longhorns are No. 2 in the Oracle ITA Rankings and No. 3 in the Tennis Channel/USTA Top 25
• Four Longhorns are ranked in singles in No. 7 – and Big 12 Co-Player of the Year – Christian Sigsgaard, No. 12 Yuya Ito, No. 55 Harrison Scott and No. 80 Leonardo Telles
• Sigsgaard, Ito and Scott claimed spots in the NCAA singles tournament
• The fifth-ranked pair of Scott and Sigsgaard will also compete in the NCAA doubles tournament
• Big 12 Coach of the Year Bruce Berque is the interim head coach for Texas

Poll Position
Cal was ranked No. 24 in last week's Oracle ITA and Tennis Channel/USTA Top 25 polls, while the pair of Brumm and Kikuchi (16-15) sits at No. 28 in last week's Oracle ITA doubles rankings. The next Oracle ITA polls come out on May 22, while the USTA will release its final team poll on May 20.
 
Duo Earns At-Large Selection
Kikuchi and Brumm claimed an at-large berth to the 32-team NCAA Doubles Championship tournament that will run from May 21-25 at the USTA National Campus in Orlando. The duo is looking to capture Cal's 10th NCAA doubles title; Matt Lucena and Bent-Ove Pedersen won the Bears' ninth national crown in 1991.
 
In the recent Pac-12 Championship, Brumm and Kikuchi upset Arizona State's 12th-ranked Nathan Ponwith and Dominik Kellovsky, 6-0, in Cal's eventual 4-1 quarterfinal win over the Sun Devils. Cal's court-one doubles team made plenty of news in the fall, when the two upset the top-ranked team of Nuno Borges and Strahinja Rakic from Mississippi State, 6-3, 4-6, 1-0(5), in the opening round of 32 in the Saint Francis Health System ITA Men's All-American Championships. The Bears then upset Virginia Tech's 16th-ranked Carlo Donato and Mitch Harper, 7-6(1), 6-3, in the round of 16 before falling in the quarterfinals.
 
Last Year At NCAAs
Ranked 34th, Cal upset the 24th-ranked N.C. State Wolf Pack, 4-1, in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Championship in Austin, Texas. Cal dropped the doubles point to N.C. State but clawed its way back, and Paul Barretto eventually clinched the victory with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Robert Turzak at court-five singles. But the Bears fell to host Texas in the second round, 4-0.
 
Also in 2018, 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. The 54th-ranked Griffith upset Kentucky's eighth-ranked Ryotaro Matsumura, 6-4, 6-3, in the opening round of 64, before falling to Arkansas' 18th-ranked Jose Salazar, 6-1, 7-5, in the round of 32. Nishimura and Griffith lost in the doubles first round to North Carolina's second-ranked William Blumberg and Robert Kelly, 6-4, 6-4.