2023–24 Western Athletic Conference Men's Basketball Season

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

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

{{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 WAC men's basketball season