The 2024 Big West Conference men's basketball tournament was the postseason men's basketball tournament for the Big West Conference of the 2023–24 NCAA Division I men's basketball season. It was held March 13–16, 2024, at The Dollar Loan Center in Henderson, Nevada. The winner, #4 seed Long Beach State, received the conference's automatic bid to the 2024 NCAA tournament.
Seeds In June 2023, the Big West Conference board of directors voted to reduce the tournament field from 10 teams to 8 teams. In the new format, the top two seeds would receive automatic berths in the semifinals, the next two seeds would be placed in the quarterfinals, and the remaining four seeds would play each other in the first round. Big West commissioner Dan Butterly stated that the decision was made to improve the regular season champion's odds of winning the tournament and thus receiving the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Of the 11 conference teams, 10 were eligible for tournament spots. UC San Diego was ineligible for the tournament, as it was in the final year of the four-year transition required for teams transferring to Division I from Division II. Teams were seeded based on their performance within the conference, and teams with identical conference records were seeded using a tiebreaker system.
As was the case with tournaments since 2020, reseeding of teams did not occur at any point.
SeedSchoolRecordTiebreaker1 UC Irvine17–32 UC Davis14–63 Hawai'i11–94 Long Beach State10–102–0 vs. UC Riverside5 UC Riverside10–100–2 vs. Long Beach State6 UC Santa Barbara9–112–0 vs. Hawai'i7 Cal State Northridge9–111–1 vs. Hawai'i8 Cal State Bakersfield8–12DNQ Cal State Fullerton7–13DNQ Cal Poly0–20
Schedule and results GameTimeMatchupScoreTelevisionAttendance First round – Wednesday, March 1316:00pmNo. 5 UC Riverside vs. No. 8 Cal State Bakersfield83–78ESPN+71728:30pmNo. 6 UC Santa Barbara vs. No. 7 Cal State Northridge84–87ESPN+ Quarterfinals – Thursday, March 1436:00pmNo. 3 Hawai'i vs. No. 7 Cal State Northridge75–68ESPN+1,22748:30pmNo. 4 Long Beach State vs. No. 5 UC Riverside86–67ESPN+ Semifinals – Friday, March 1556:00pmNo. 1 UC Irvine vs. No. 4 Long Beach State79–83ESPN+ (live), ESPNU (delayed)1,91968:30pmNo. 2 UC Davis vs. No. 3 Hawai'i68–65ESPN2/ESPN+ Final – Saturday, March 1676:30pmNo. 4 Long Beach State vs. No. 2 UC Davis74-70ESPN2/ESPN+1,623 *Game times in PDT. Rankings denote tournament seed.
Bracket *denotes each overtime period
References