The WAC women's basketball tournament is the conference championship tournament in basketball for 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 mos ...

(WAC). The WAC has held a postseason tournament to crown a women's basketball champion every year since 1991. At first the regular season champion hosted it but at its height, the tournament was held at larger urban venues. With the departure 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 ...

teams, the tournament had returned to campus, with each game in the tournament being held in one campus venue, each year. Since 2011, the tournament has been held at the

Orleans Arena Orleans Arena is a 9,500-seat multi-purpose arena in Paradise, Nevada, in the Las Vegas Valley. It is located at the Orleans Hotel and Casino and is operated by Coast Casinos, a subsidiary of Boyd Gaming Corporation. The arena is the home t ...

, part of the Orleans Hotel and Casino in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

. The winner of the WAC tournament is normally guaranteed a berth into the

NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament The NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 women's college basketball teams from the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic ...

every year. An exception to this was in 2021, when California Baptist won the WAC tournament but was ineligible for the NCAA tournament because the school was in the midst of its transition from

NCAA Division II NCAA Division II (D-II) is an intermediate-level division of competition in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). It offers an alternative to both the larger and better-funded Division I and to the scholarship-free environmen ...

to Division I. Starting with the 2023 tournament, the WAC adopted a new seeding system based on advanced team metrics, developed in large part by statistical guru Ken Pomeroy. Tournament entry will still be based on conference record.

Results

Records

Note: 2021 champion California Baptist began a transition from

in 2018 and thus was not eligible for NCAA-sponsored postseason play until the 2022–23 season. * Schools highlighted in pink are former WAC members as of the current 2022–23 WAC season. * Records for Texas–Rio Grande Valley include those of Texas–Pan American. UTRGV was formally founded in 2013 and began operation in 2015 via the merger of UTPA and UT Brownsville. The UTPA athletic program and its history were transferred to UTRGV. * Among current WAC members, four have competed in at least one WAC tournament but have yet to reach the title game: Abilene Christian, Sam Houston, UT Arlington, and

Utah Valley Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

. Of these schools, only Utah Valley has competed in more than one WAC tournament. The 2021–22 season was the first for Abilene Christian and Sam Houston. UT Arlington competed in the 2013 tournament in the only season of its first WAC tenure; it rejoined for the 2022–23 season. * Two other members,

Tarleton Tarleton is a village and civil parish in the borough of West Lancashire, Lancashire, England. It situated in the Lancashire mosslands approximately 10 miles north east of Southport, approximately 10 miles south west of Preston, approximately ...

and Utah Tech (renamed from Dixie State before the 2022–23 season), have yet to compete in a WAC tournament. Both schools started transitions from

to Division I in 2020. Under then-current WAC rules, transitional schools were ineligible to compete in the WAC tournament until their third transitional season. (This was changed in advance of the 2022–23 season to allow transitional schools to compete in the tournament upon joining the WAC.) Both schools are ineligible for NCAA-sponsored postseason play until 2024–25. * Southern Utah is playing its first WAC season in 2022–23. * New Mexico State and Sam Houston will leave the WAC after the 2022–23 season for Conference USA.

References

{{NCAA women's college basketball tournament navbox

Results

Records

See also

References