HUTCHINSON, Kan. – Now comes the unpredictable part – match play at the NCAA Championship.
Stanford won the stroke-play qualifier at 13-under 827, finishing nine shots ahead of Alabama and LSU. The top-ranked Crimson Tide won the tiebreaker for the No. 2 seed because their fifth man had a lower cumulative score.
Oklahoma State finished fourth at even par, while Georgia Tech was fifth at 1 over.
UCLA (4 over), SMU (5 over) and 2013 NCAA finalist Illinois (5 over) rounded out the top 8.
Three top-10 teams failed to advance to the match-play bracket – No. 4 Cal (10 over), No. 6 Georgia (10 over) and No. 8 Washington (13 over).
Teams are seeded in match play based on their finish in the three-round qualifier, not their national ranking. As a result, No. 2-ranked Oklahoma State will square off against No. 4 Georgia Tech in the quarterfinals, while LSU and UCLA – two teams ranked outside the top 10 nationally – also will go head-to-head.
It’s worth noting that since match play was implemented in 2009, no team stroke-play medalist has ever gone on to win the national title.
Here are the quarterfinal matches slated for Tuesday morning (the semifinals will begin at 2 p.m. ET Tuesday):
8 a.m. ET:
Match 1: Alabama (2) vs. SMU (7)
Bobby Wyatt vs. Austin Smotherman
Robby Shelton vs. Andrew Buchanan
Tom Lovelady vs. Harry Higgs
Trey Mullinax vs. Bryson Dechambeau
Cory Whitsett vs. Ryan Burgess
Match 2: LSU (3) vs. UCLA (6)
Curtis Thompson vs. Preston Valder
Benjamin Taylor vs. Anton Arboleda
Smylie Kaufman vs. Jonathan Garrick
Stewart Jolly vs. Lorens Chan
Zach Wright vs. Matt Pinizzotto
8:50 a.m. ET:
Match 3: Stanford (1) vs. Illinois (8)
David Boote vs. Thomas Detry
Viraat Badhwar vs. Charlie Danielson
Maverick McNealy vs. Brian Campbell
Patrick Rodgers vs. Jonathan Hauter
Cameron Wilson vs. Alex Burge
Match 4: Oklahoma State (4) vs. Georgia Tech (5)
Talor Gooch vs. Richy Werenski
Zachary Olsen vs. Bo Andrews
Wyndham Clark vs. Anders Albertson
Ian Davis vs. Ollie Schniederjans
Jordan Niebrugge vs. Seth Reeves
SEMIFINALS
2 p.m. ET:
Winner of match No. 1 vs. winner of match No. 2
2:45 p.m. ET:
Winner of match No. 3 vs. winner of match No. 4