2000 WAC men's basketball tournament

The 2000 Western Athletic Conference men's basketball tournament was held March 9–11 at the Selland Arena at Fresno State University in Fresno, California.[2]

2000 WAC men's basketball tournament
ClassificationDivision I
Season1999–00
Teams8
SiteSelland Arena
Fresno, CA
ChampionsFresno State (vacated) (1st title)
Winning coachJerry Tarkanian (vacated) (1st title)
MVPCourtney Alexander (Fresno State)
← 1999
2001 →
1999–2000 WAC men's basketball standings
Conf Overall
Team W   L   PCT W   L   PCT
No. 18 Tulsa 12 2   .857 32 5   .865
Fresno State 11 3   .786 24 10   .706
SMU 9 5   .643 21 9   .700
TCU 8 6   .571 18 14   .563
San Jose State 6 8   .429 15 15   .500
Hawaii 5 9   .357 17 12   .586
UTEP 4 10   .286 13 15   .464
Rice 1 13   .071 5 22   .185
2000 WAC tournament winner
Rankings from AP Poll[1]

Hosts Fresno State upset top-seeded Tulsa in the championship game, 75–72, to clinch their first WAC men's tournament championship. However, most of the Bulldogs' season was later vacated by the NCAA for using an ineligible player.

Fresno State received the WAC's automatic bid to the 2000 NCAA tournament. They were joined in the tournament by WAC regular season champion Tulsa, who earned an at-large bid.

Format

edit

Prior to the 1999–2000 season, eight of the WAC's members announced they were departing to form the new Mountain West Conference: Air Force, BYU, Colorado State, UNLV, New Mexico, San Diego State, Utah, and Wyoming. With this dramatic departure, the league was left with only eight teams. The tournament field was subsequently reduced from twelve to eight, and the division structure was eliminated.

All teams now qualified for the tournament and were all placed into the initial quarterfinal round. The teams were seeded based on regular season conference record.

Bracket

edit
Quarterfinals
Thursday, March 9
Semifinals
Friday, March 10
Championship
Saturday, March 11
         
1 #14 Tulsa 71
8 Rice 51
1 #14 Tulsa 93
4 TCU 77
5 San Jose State 71
4 TCU 84
1 #14 Tulsa 72
2 Fresno State 75
3 SMU 82
6 Hawaii 87
6 Hawaii 100
2 Fresno State 103
7 UTEP 70
2 Fresno State 79

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ sports-reference.com 1999-00 Western Athletic Conference Season Summary
  2. ^ "1999-00 Western Athletic Conference Season Summary". sports-reference.com. Sports Reference LLC. 2016. Retrieved April 16, 2016.