Division III UCSD Hits the Big Time, Crashes NCAA’s ‘Show’ : Water Polo: After a long wait, the Tritons have reached the eight-team postseason tournament.

For all those who have been snubbed and left off the guest list of the biggest bash of the year, read and relish this.

Since the NCAA first sanctioned a postseason water polo tournament in 1969, no Division III school has been invited, year after frustrating year.

That has changed. Friday, sixth-seeded UCSD will play No. 3 Stanford in the opening round of the eight-team tournament in Indianapolis.

“It’s a feat in itself,” said UCSD Coach Denny Harper. “It’s a bit like a Mesa College playing Notre Dame in football. It was a good ol’ boys club, and now we’re busting in.”

Harper has waited a long time for this. He is the key force behind UCSD’s inclusion into the tournament; qualifying has been his primary goal since he took over the program in 1980.

“We have big aspirations,” he said. “It kind of boils down to one weekend of implementing our philosophy, which is: we can compete against the top-scholarship programs” that have dominated the competition.

Since Division II and III schools were conspicuously absent from NCAA postseason play, Harper in 1982 helped start the Western Regional (now the Western Water Polo Assn.) tournament to give players a postseason. UCSD has won the tournament, which has undergone several name changes, four times and has been in the finals every year. In 1981, it came close to an NCAA berth but lost out at the last minute to Cal.

Harper said “enough already” in 1986 when the Tritons defeated Air Force three times and the NCAA issued the Falcons a tournament bid while bypassing UCSD.

So Harper fought hard for the 11-member WWPA, in its third season, to get conference status and an automatic bid. Last year it got both, thus becoming only the second conference on the West Coast--the Big West is the other--to get automatic NCAA consideration.

“It means one of those monopolizing schools won’t be going,” Harper said. “The powers in the NCAA realize that it is a good move. Schools are excited about upgrading their programs. Before, there was nothing for them at the end of the season. Now we have something for them, a possible NCAA berth.”

And now one belongs to the Tritons. But it’s not a pinch-yourself-I’m-dreaming reality only for Harper. Two fifth-year seniors, co-captain Peter McConville and Todd Sells, have also been kept waiting.

When it was announced that the WWPA winner would advance to the NCAAs, Harper told McConville that it took him a decade to get there. McConville replied, “Yeah, well, it took me half that long.”

McConville, a Mira Mesa High School graduate, said hard work and the efforts of Harper inched UCSD closer to its present position each year.

“We kept climbing the ladder,” McConville said. “If you asked me a few years ago, I’d have said no way would this have happened. Denny being the coach has made a big difference. He’s the one who’s worked so hard to get the bid.”

From the time it was announced that the WWPA would be represented, UCSD has had tunnel vision toward what they refer to as “The Show.”

“We envisioned this from the very first game,” McConville said. “Since the very first day of practice, nothing else mattered.”

Said Harper: “No question. I knew with an NCAA bid on the line, there was no way we wouldn’t make it. But we had to ask ourselves if we’re content to just be going to The Show. I asked them, and they all responded ‘no.’ ”

Now they have set their sights on getting past the first round. Then they would be guaranteed a top-four finish.

“We don’t want to sit on what we’ve done,” Sells said. “We want to do more.”

Since UCSD won the WWPA tournament Nov. 12, Sells said, practices have been intense and methodical.

“You can tell everyone’s thinking about it,” he said. “The way we pass, shoot and catch. There’s a reason to everything. We ask ourselves, ‘Is this the way I’d want to do it at The Show?’ Now everything is geared toward The Show.”

But it’s a show no one at UCSD has starred in, raising the question about the importance of playoff experience.

McConville said the pressure will be off them. “They’ll be the ones worrying,” he said. “If we just have a good ‘go-for-it’ game, we could surprise a lot of people.”

Said Harper: “We know we’re going to be underdogs, and we play awfully tough when we’re underdogs. My guys will thrive in it. I think they’ll eat it up.”

The probability of them doing so appears strong. Already, the 20-12 Tritons have broken the school record for most victories in a season and achieved their highest national ranking (seventh).

Jason (Turtle) Brown, a junior and WWPA most valuable player, had 66 steals to break the school record of 52 he set last year. His 75-goal season is far off Dana Greisen’s record of 95 set in 1984, but it is the closest anyone has come since.

“This is definitely one of the strongest teams I’ve had,” Harper said. “One big difference is the ability to play different styles. We’re not locked into one style. This is one of the fastest teams I’ve had.”

Speed is fine, but Sells said near-perfection will help. “To win,” he said, “we have to have our best game, almost perfect. We’ll have to be moving 100% of the time and have good defense and execution.”

Harper said he hopes that the Tritons first appearance in an NCAA tournament will make his local and state recruiting efforts easier.

“We hope it will affect our recruiting,” he said. “High schools and (community colleges) here will see that we’re going. If we lose them, they’ll just become one of the masses somewhere else. Here they’ll play.”

Local prospects are lured by scholarship and contingency scholarships according to Harper, but he hopes other factors will keep them in San Diego.

“If they don’t need the money and feel some loyalty to San Diego,” he said, “we’d like them to stay here.”

Still, he knows this is the first step in making UCSD a known power in the sport.

“People already make the assumption that it is an aquatic-oriented school,” Harper said. “It can’t hurt that we’re competing in Indianapolis.”