The first-ever NCPA collegiate regional held in Massachusetts didn’t just crown a champion — it sent four New England programs to the NCPA National Championship. At the Massachusetts Regional, Harvard, UConn, Tufts and Boston University all reached the semifinals — and with it, all four earned Division 1 bids to Nationals.
What a D1 bid means
Each NCPA regional awards 12 bids to the National Championship — four each to Division 1, Division 2 and Division 3, based on how far a team advances. All four New England semifinalists landed in D1, the top tier, where the country’s best college teams meet later in the season.
The four teams headed to Nationals
- Harvard — regional champions, and by their own account the first club pickleball team in the Ivy League.
- UConn — the runner-up, which trains at a partner racquet club since it has no on-campus courts yet.
- Tufts — founded only in 2024 and already a national qualifier.
- Boston University — which pushed champion Harvard to a seven-game, sudden-death semifinal.
New England is officially on the national college-pickleball map. We’ll follow all four through the season on our College Pickleball hub.
Event details via the official NCPA broadcast of the 2026 Massachusetts Regional. Photos courtesy of the National Collegiate Pickleball Association.