WILMINGTON, North Carolina – The Coastal Athletic Association Champion UNCW men's golf program will tee off the 2026 NCAA Regionals at the Traditions Club in Bryan, Texas, as the No. 7 seed, as announced on Wednesday afternoon.
The 2026 NCAA Bryan Regional, hosted by Texas A&M University, will take place May 18-20. It is one of six 54-hole tournaments that will feature 13-14 teams and six individual entries at each site for a total of 396 student-athletes competing.
The top five teams and individual not part of an advancing team from each of the six regional sites, 156 players total, will qualify for the 2026 NCAA Division I Men's Golf Championships, scheduled to be played May 29 to June at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, California.
The Seahawks, ranked No. 40 according to the latest Clippd rankings, will make their 12th NCAA appearance and first since 2023 after automatic entry into the 81-team field by winning the 2026 CAA Championship last month with a record-breaking performance at the Dataw Island Club.
UNCW established a new CAA record with a 38-under-par 826 team score with three finishers in the top five, highlighted by CAA Individual Champion James Rico, who broke the conference record with a 14-under tournament score.
First-year head coach and Wilmington native Blake Taylor's squad authored a 268-stroke third-round score on Saint Helena's Island in South Carolina, four shots below the previous single-round record, to cruise past defending champion Elon by 17 strokes for their first team title since 2023.
Rico, the CAA Most Outstanding Player, was named to the CAA All-Tournament Team along with third-place finisher John Logan and Gray Mitchum, who earned a share of fourth and was named to the Allstate NACDA Good Works Team for the spring season earlier this week.
The Seahawks previously competed in the NCAA Regionals as a team in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2018, 2019, 2021 and 2023. UNCW sent individuals to NCAAs in 2002, 2009, 2016, 2017 and 2024.
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Traditions Club – Bryan, Texas
Hosted by Texas A&MÂ
Teams (seeded in the following order):
1. TexasÂ
2. North Carolina
3. Tennessee
4. New Mexico
5. Texas A&M
6. TCU
7. UNCW [Coastal Athletic Association]
8. UNLV [Mountain West Conference]
9. Colorado
10. Cincinnati
11. Chattanooga [Southern Conference]
12. Miami (Ohio) [Mid-American Conference]
13. UTRGV [Southland Conference]
14. Arkansas-Pine Bluff [Southwestern Athletic Conference]
Individuals (seeded in the following order):
1. William Sides, SMU
2. Ben Steinmann, SMU
3. Jonas Appel, BaylorÂ
4. Arth Sinha, UT Arlington [Western Athletic Conference]
5. Joel Talusen, UIW [Southland Conference]
