The 2026 Big West Conference women's basketball tournament was the postseason women's basketball tournament for the Big West Conference of the 2025–26 NCAA Division I women's basketball season. It will was held March 11–14, 2026, at Lee's Family Forum in Henderson, Nevada. The winner, UC San Diego, received the conference's automatic bid to the 2026 NCAA tournament. This was their second Big West championship, winning last year as well.
Seeds In this format, the top two seeds receive automatic berths in the semifinals, the following two seeds are placed in the quarterfinals, and the remaining four seeds play each other in the first round. Big West commissioner Dan Butterly stated that the decision was made to improve the regular season champions odds of winning the tournament and thus receiving the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
Of the 11 conference teams, all 11 were eligible for tournament spots. As has been the case since 2020, reseeding teams do not occur at any point. SeedSchoolRecordTiebreaker 1UC Irvine17–32–0 vs. UC Davis 2UC San Diego17–30–2 vs. UC Davis 3UC Davis15–5 4Hawai'i 14–6 5Cal State Fullerton13–7 6UC Santa Barbara12–8 7UC Riverside8–12 8CSUN6–14 Long Beach State4–16 Cal State Bakersfield2–185–5 vs. nonconference opponents Cal Poly2–182–8 vs. nonconference opponents
Schedule GameTimeMatchupScoreTelevisionFirst round – Wednesday, March 11112:00 p.m.No. 5 Cal State Fullerton vs. No. 8 CSUN80–65ESPN+22:30 p.m.No. 6 UC Santa Barbara vs. No. 7 UC Riverside53–58Quarterfinals – Thursday, March 12312:00 p.m.No. 4 Hawai'i vs. No. 5 Cal State Fullerton72–61ESPN+42:30 p.m.No. 3 UC Davis vs. No. 7 UC Riverside70–59Semifinals – Friday, March 13512:00 p.m.No. 1 UC Irvine vs. No. 4 Hawai'i63–67ESPN+62:30 p.m.No. 2 UC San Diego vs. No. 3 UC Davis84–79Final – Saturday, March 1473:00 p.m.No. 2 UC San Diego vs. No. 4 Hawai'i60–48ESPN+*Game times in PDT. Rankings denote tournament seed.
Bracket
*denotes each overtime period
See also 2026 Big West Conference men's basketball tournament
References