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2023–24 WAC men's basketball season
League	NCAA Division I
Sport	Basketball
Number of teams	11
TV partner(s)	ESPN, ESPN+
Regular season
WAC tournament
WAC men's basketball seasons
← 2022–232024–25 →

The 2023–24 WAC men's basketball season began with practices in October followed by the start of the 2023–24 NCAA Division I men's basketball season in early November 2023. The conference began play in late November 2023. This is the WAC's 62nd season of basketball. The WAC competed with 11 teams due to two teams having left the conference since the prior season. Both New Mexico State and Sam Houston joined Conference USA effective July 1, 2023. The WAC tournament was held March 13–16, 2024 with the top eight teams competing for the automatic bid to the 2024 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament at Orleans Arena in the Las Vegas-area community of Paradise, Nevada.

This was the last WAC season for UTRGV, which announced on March 25, 2024 that it would join the Southland Conference that July.

Pre-season

WAC Media days

The WAC's 2023 men's basketball media day was held on October 16.

WAC Preseason All-Conference

First Team

† Denotes Preseason Player of the Year

Regular season

Early season tournaments

Conference USA-Western Athletic Conference Challenge

Records against other conferences

2023–24 records against non-conference foes:

Regular season

Record against ranked non-conference opponents

This is a list of games against ranked opponents only (rankings from the AP poll/Coaches poll):

Team rankings are reflective of AP poll/Coaches poll when the game was played, not current or final ranking.

Rankings

Head coaches

Coaching changes

Three coaching changes were made during the offseason. Todd Simon accepted the head coaching position at Bowling Green in March 2023. The next month, Rob Jeter began as head coach at Southern Utah. With 20 years of coaching experience at the college level, KT Turner was hired as the new head coach at UT Arlington. Mark Madsen was hired as the head coach at California and Todd Phillips was promoted from associate head coach to the head coach at Utah Valley in April 2023.

Coaches

Note: Stats shown are before the beginning of the season. Overall and WAC records are from time at current school.

Notes:

• Overall and WAC records, conference titles, etc. are from time at current school and are through the end of the 2022–23 season.
• Records and season totals only include time spent at Division I as head coach.
• NCAA tournament appearances are from time at current school only.
• NCAA Final Fours and Championship include time at other schools.

Post season

WAC tournament

The conference tournament is scheduled to be played from March 13–16, 2024, at the Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada near Las Vegas. Eight of the eleven members are invited to the tournament. While Tarleton and Utah Tech are ineligible for the NCAA tournament, they are eligible for the WAC tournament.

NCAA tournament

Teams from the conference that were selected to participate: 1

National Invitation Tournament

Number from the conference that were selected to participate: 0

College Basketball Invitational

Number from the conference that were selected to participate: 1

CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament

Number from the conference that were selected to participate: 2

*Denotes overtime period

Awards and honors

Players of the week

Throughout the conference regular season, the WAC offices name a player of the week and a newcomer of the week each Monday.

Totals per school - Players of the week

All-Americans

All-WAC

First team

• ‡ WAC Player of the Year
• ‡‡ WAC Defensive Player of the Year

Second team

All-Freshman team

† Freshman of the Year

All-Defensive team

• ‡WAC Defensive Player of the Year

Other awards

Sixth Man of the Year: Phillip Russell, UT Arlington

Coach of the Year: Joseph Jones, Tarleton

2024 NBA draft

Home game attendance

Bold – At or exceed capacity; capacity ratios for Seattle U and UTRGV computed based on smaller home arena; attendance is for regular season only

• †Season high
• ‡Climate Pledge Arena
• ‡‡Bert Ogden Arena

References

1. "C-USA picks Liberty among four new additions". ESPN.com. November 5, 2021. Retrieved November 6, 2023.
2. Bourne, Isaac (November 2, 2023). "Conference USA Season Preview: A Conference Flipped Upside Down". Mid-Major Madness. Retrieved November 6, 2023.
3. "Championship Format And Dates For 2024 Hercules Tires WAC Basketball Tournament Set". wacsports.com. November 4, 2023. Retrieved November 5, 2023.
4. "UTRGV Athletics Accepts Invitation to Join Southland Conference in 2024-25" (Press release). Southland Conference. March 25, 2024. Retrieved March 25, 2024.
5. "Grand Canyon Chosen By WAC Coaches To Repeat In 2023-24 Men's Basketball Preseason Poll". wacsports.com. November 4, 2023. Retrieved November 5, 2023.
6. "Matchups For The 2023-24 WAC/CUSA Scheduling Initiative Announced". wacsports.com. October 23, 2024. Retrieved October 26, 2024.
7. Couch, Graham (March 18, 2023). "Fowler's Todd Simon comes back close to home, takes over Bowling Green men's basketball program". Lansing State Journal. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
8. Walker, Sean; April 12, KSL com | Posted-; A.m, 2023 at 9:59. "Southern Utah finalizes hiring of new coach Rob Jeter from Western Illinois". www.ksl.com. Retrieved November 9, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
9. "Kentucky basketball assistant KT Turner named UT Arlington head coach". The Courier-Journal. Retrieved November 10, 2023.
10. Dallas, Kelsey (April 7, 2023). "UVU has chosen its next head basketball coach". Deseret News. Retrieved November 9, 2023.
11. "WAC approves Conference Championship eligibility for Tarleton in recent board meeting". Tarleton State University Athletics. Retrieved December 16, 2022.
12. Seattle U uses two home arenas: Redhawk Center, which is located on campus, and the newly renovated Climate Pledge Arena in uptown Seattle.
13. UTRGV uses two home arenas: UTRGV Fieldhouse, which is located on campus, and Bert Ogden Arena which is also located in Edinburg, Texas and is home to the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA G League.

• 2023–24 Western Athletic Conference men's basketball season