The West Coast Conference (WCC) Men's Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the most outstanding men's basketball player in the

West Coast Conference The West Coast Conference (WCC) — known as the California Basketball Association from 1952 to 1956 and then as the West Coast Athletic Conference until 1989 — is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with NCAA Division I consisting of ...

. The award was first given following the conference's inaugural 1952–53 season, when it was known as the California Basketball Association. The only season in which the award was not presented was the conference's second season of 1953–54. There have been four ties in the award's history, most recently in 2006–07 between

Sean Denison Sean Morgan Denison (born August 26, 1985) is a Canadian professional basketball player. He ended up in seventh place with the Canada national men's basketball team at the 2007 Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Rio de Janeiro ( , ...

of Santa Clara and

Derek Raivio Derek Raivio (born November 9, 1984) is an American former professional basketball player who last played for Benfica of the Portuguese Basketball League. College career Raivio played for four seasons at Gonzaga University under coach Mark Few ...

of Gonzaga. There have also been 13 repeat winners, but only one—

Bill Cartwright James William Cartwright (born July 30, 1957) is an American former professional basketball player and a former head coach of the Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association (NBA). A 7'1" (2.16 m) center, he played 16 seasons for the N ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

—has been Player of the Year three times. Four schools in the West Coast Conference have dominated the total awards distribution. Before 2000,

Pepperdine Pepperdine University () is a private research university affiliated with the Churches of Christ with its main campus in Los Angeles County, California. Pepperdine's main campus consists of 830 acres (340 ha) overlooking the Pacific Ocean and t ...

, San Francisco and Santa Clara had earned the bulk of the awards. Since then, Gonzaga has claimed a near-monopoly on it. In the 21 seasons from 2000–01 to the present, coinciding with the Bulldogs' rise to national prominence, Gonzaga players have won the award outright 15 times and shared the award once. Gonzaga now claims the most winners with 19, while each of the three other schools are tied for the second most with 11 winners apiece. The next closest school, Saint Mary's, has eight. One current member has yet to have a winner ( Portland).

Key

Winners

Winners by school

Footnotes

*The University of the Pacific left in 1971 to join its football team in the Pacific Coast Athletic Association (PCAA), now known as the

Big West Conference The Big West Conference (BWC) is an American collegiate athletic conference whose member institutions participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's Division I. The conference was originally formed on July 1, 1969, as the Pacifi ...

. Pacific had been a charter PCAA member for football only in 1969. The school, which dropped football in 1995, rejoined the WCC in 2013. *

Seattle University Seattle University (SeattleU) is a private Jesuit university in Seattle, Washington. Seattle University is the largest independent university in the Northwestern United States, with over 7,500 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate pro ...

left in 1980 to become an NAIA school. It has since rejoined the NCAA, first as a Division II school and now in Division I, and is now a member of the

Western Athletic Conference The Western Athletic Conference (WAC) is an NCAA Division I conference. The WAC covers a broad expanse of the western United States with member institutions located in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Utah, Washington, and Texas. Due to most of t ...

(WAC). *The

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes th ...

(UNLV) left in 1975 to become a Division I independent. UNLV is now a member of the

Mountain West Conference The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations ...

(MW). *

California State University, Fresno California State University, Fresno (Fresno State) is a public university in Fresno, California. It is one of 23 campuses in the California State University system. The university had a fall 2020 enrollment of 25,341 students. It offers bache ...

, more commonly known as Fresno State, spent two seasons as a dual member of the

California Collegiate Athletic Association The California Collegiate Athletic Association (CCAA) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division II level. All of its current members are public universities, and upon U ...

(CCAA) and the then-WCAC. The Bulldogs returned to exclusive CCAA membership in 1957, and are now in the MW. * The

University of Nevada, Reno The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12 ...

(Nevada) left in 1979 for the

Big Sky Conference The Big Sky Conference (BSC) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the NCAA's Division I with football competing in the Football Championship Subdivision. Member institutions are located in the western United States in the eig ...

. The Wolf Pack are now in the MW. *

San Jose State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) ...

left in 1969 to become a founding member of the PCAA. The Spartans are now in the MW. * The

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

left in 1969 to become a founding member of the PCAA. Apart from a two-year stint in the mid-1970s in which they were independent, the Gauchos have remained in the PCAA/Big West to this day.

References

* {{Men's college basketball award navbox NCAA Division I men's basketball conference players of the year Player of the Year Awards established in 1953