The 2023–24 Southern Utah Thunderbirds men's basketball team represented

Southern Utah University Southern Utah University (SUU) is a public university in Cedar City, Utah, United States. Founded in 1897 as a normal school, Southern Utah University now has over 1,800 graduates each year with baccalaureate and other graduate degrees from its ...

in the

2023–24 NCAA Division I men's basketball season The 2023–24 NCAA Division I men's basketball season began on November 6, 2023. The regular season ended on March 17, 2024, with the 2024 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament beginning with the First Four on March 19 and ending with th ...

. They were led by first-year head coach

Rob Jeter Robert DeLafayette Jeter III (born May 15, 1969) is an American college basketball coach and current head coach at Southern Utah. Personal life Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Jeter grew up in Chicago. His father, Bob (1937–2008), was a Ro ...

and played their games at

America First Event Center America First Event Center is a 5,300-seat multi-purpose arena in Cedar City, Utah. It was built in 1985. It is home to the Southern Utah University Thunderbirds basketball, volleyball and gymnastics teams. The America First Event Center is als ...

as members 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, Texas, Utah and Washington (state), Washington. Due to ...

(WAC). They finished the season 10–21, 5–15 in WAC play, to finish in tenth place, and thus they did not qualify to play in the WAC tournament.

Previous season

The Thunderbirds finished the 2022–23 season 24–13, 12–6 in WAC play, to finish in third place. In the WAC tournament, the team won their first two games against Utah Tech and

Utah Valley Utah Valley is a valley in North Central Utah located in Utah County, Utah, Utah County, and is considered part of the Wasatch Front. It contains the cities of Provo, Utah, Provo, Orem, Utah, Orem, and their suburbs, including Alpine, Utah, A ...

before falling to

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a mile (). The canyon and adjacent rim are contained within Grand Canyon Nati ...

in the championship. The Thunderbirds were invited to appear in the

College Basketball Invitational The College Basketball Invitational (CBI) is a men's college basketball tournament created in 2007 by The Gazelle Group. The inaugural tournament occurred after the conclusion of the 2007–08 men's college basketball regular season. The CBI sel ...

where they defeated

North Alabama North Alabama is a region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Several geographic definitions for the area exist, with all descriptions including the nine counties of Alabama's Tennessee Valley region. The North Alabama Industrial Development Associ ...

and

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 ...

to advance to the semifinals. They were defeated by

Eastern Kentucky Eastern or Easterns may refer to: Transportation Airlines *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai * Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 192 ...

to end their season. On March 15, head coach

Todd Simon Todd Andrew Simon (born April 21, 1972) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey centre. Biography As a youth, Simon played in the 1985 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with the Toronto Young Nationals minor ice hockey team. ...

accepted the same position at

Bowling Green A bowling green is a finely laid, close-mown and rolled stretch of turf for playing the game of bowls. Before 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding of Thrupp, near Stroud, UK, invented the lawnmower, lawns were often kept cropped by grazing sheep ...

; assistant coach Flynn Clayman served as interim head coach during the College Basketball Invitational. On April 7, it was announced that

Western Illinois Forgottonia (), also spelled Forgotonia, is the name given to a 16-county region in Western Illinois in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This geographic region forms the distinctive western bulge of Illinois (area west of 90° Longitude West) t ...

head coach

would be named the school's next head coach.

Roster

Schedule and results

, - !colspan=9 style=, Exhibition , - !colspan=9 style=, Regular season Source:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 Southern Utah Thunderbirds men's basketball team Southern Utah Thunderbirds men's basketball seasons

Southern Utah Dixie is a nickname for the populated, lower-elevation area of south-central Washington County, the southwest corner of the State of Utah, bordering nearby Arizona to the south, and Nevada to the west. The area lies in the northeastern Mojave ...