The Big West Tournament gets underway at the Honda Center in Anaheim March 8-10. Here’s your printable bracket so you can follow along.
The Big West men’s basketball championship gets underway March 8-10 in Anaheim in a battle between Hawai’i and California State and UC schools. UC Davis has the No 1 seed after going 12-4 in conference and 21-9 overall, but they’ll get some competition from No 2 UC Santa Barbara.
The three day tournament kicks off with quarterfinals on March 8. First up is No 8 Riverside (4-12 conference, 9-21 overall) vs top seed UC Davis. That’s followed by No 5 Long Beach against No 4 Fullerton in Quarterfinal 2, No 6 Hawai’i vs No 3 UC Irvine Quarterfinal 3 and wraps up with No 7 Cal Poly vs No 2 UC Santa Barbara in Quarterfinal 4.
Aside from UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara, the two teams to really watch for are No 6 Hawai’i (8-8 conference) and No 4 Cal State Fullerton (10-6 conference). Both teams struggled in conference but had 17 wins overall and could be the dark horses in the Big West Tournament. Hawai’i has a chance to upset UC Irvine, which was 11-5 in conference and 16-16 overall.
The March 9 games will feature the lowest seed remaining against the highest remaining seed in Semifinal 1, followed by the two other quarterfinal winners. The action concludes with the championship on March 10 with the winner punching their ticket to the Big Dance.
The Big West Conference will get bigger in the next few years now that UC San Diego has transitioned to a D-I school in 2017. Both UC San Diego and Cal State Bakersfield will be eligible to compete in the 2020-2021 season.
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The Big West Conference tournament will be televised and streamed online. You can catch the quarterfinal games on Fox Sports West and Fox Sports GO, the semifinals on ESPNU and the championship game on ESPN2.