The 1997 Western Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament was held March 4–8 at the

Thomas & Mack Center The Thomas & Mack Center is a multi-purpose arena located on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in Paradise, Nevada. It is home of the UNLV Runnin' Rebels basketball team of the Mountain West Conference. History The facility first ...

at the

University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada, United States. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the ...

Paradise, Nevada Paradise is an Unincorporated towns in Nevada, unincorporated town and census-designated place (CDP) in Clark County, Nevada, United States, adjacent to the city of Las Vegas. It was formed on December 8, 1950. Its population was 191,238 at the ...

. Top-seeded

Utah Utah is a landlocked state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is one of the Four Corners states, sharing a border with Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. It also borders Wyoming to the northea ...

easily defeated tenth-seeded in the championship game, 89–68, to clinch their second WAC men's tournament championship. The Utes, in turn, received an automatic bid to the 1997 NCAA Division I tournament. Utah would ultimately defeat Navy, UNC Charlotte, and Stanford on their way to the Elite Eight, where they lost to

Kentucky Kentucky (, ), officially the Commonwealth of Kentucky, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to the north, West Virginia to the ...

. They were joined in the tournament by Tulsa and New Mexico, who earned at-large bids.

Format

Prior to the 1997 season, the WAC added six new members:

Rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

, SMU,

San Jose State San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the List of oldest schools in California, oldest public university on the West Coast of ...

TCU TCU may stand for: Education * Tanzania Commission for Universities, regulatory body for Universities in Tanzania * Texas Christian University, a private university in Fort Worth, Texas ** TCU Horned Frogs, the athletic programs of the school * Tok ...

Tulsa Tulsa ( ) is the second-most-populous city in the state of Oklahoma, after Oklahoma City, and the 48th-most-populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tul ...

, and

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

. With the additions, total conference membership increased to sixteen teams. The regular season schedule was re-arranged so that teams were placed into one of two eight-team divisions, the Mountain and Pacific Divisions, generally determined by geography. The tournament field was subsequently expanded from ten to twelve teams, with the top six teams from each of the two divisions qualifying for the tournament. Teams' seeds were determined based on their finish in the standings, and were seeded one to six within their division. The teams who finished in the top two in either of the divisions received byes to the second round while the remaining eight teams were placed in the first round. Each team was initially matched up with a team from the other division (3rd versus 6th and 4th versus 5th).

Bracket

References

{{1997 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament navbox WAC men's basketball tournament

Tournament A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

WAC men's basketball tournament WAC men's basketball tournament