Get To Know a College Basketball Mid-Major: Western Athletic Conference

You know all about the Power 6 conferences in college basketball. You hear about those more than any other, and those groups often dominate the March Madness conversation. There are 31 other conferences out there, however, and our goal is to get you up to speed on the teams, players and fights in the standings to know before the conference tournaments, Selection Sunday and the official start of March Madness. It’s time for you to get to know a mid-major: this time, it’s the Western Athletic Conference. The Western Athletic Conference — or WAC — is one of the smaller ones out there, as there are just seven teams within it clustered within three states: one in California, and then two each in Texas and Utah. This is also the last year of its existence in its current form: on July 1, 2026, California Baptist and Utah Valley will leave for the Big West Conference, while Southern Utah and Utah Tech will join the Big Sky. The remaining members will rebrand as the United Athletic Conference, along with some current Atlantic Sun Conference members and the Ohio Valley Conference’s Little Rock. That’s a 2026-2027 problem to untangle, though. For now, this is the last go of things in the WAC as it is, which is also different from how things were a year ago: in last year’s tournament, there were nine WAC teams. This time around with just seven, the top two seeds will receive a bye directly to the semifinals instead of the quarterfinals, while the bottom two teams will play each other in the first round. The winner of that game will take on the third seed, while the fourth and fifth face off, with the winners going to the semis. For both the men’s and women’s tournaments over the past three years, the automatic bid was the sole one granted to WAC teams. Nothing about that is likely to change in the final year of the WAC. Western Athletic — Men’s College Basketball Leaders: California Baptist has the leading WAC scorer — senior guard Dominique Daniels, who is also 8th in Division I this season — and the conference lead, and those two things are related. What sticks out about the Lancers’ season is that they began conference play 0-3 after going 10-3 in non-conference games. Cal Baptist then ripped off nine-straight wins to vault to the top of the Western Athletic Conference, where it is now a game up on Utah Valley and Utah Tech, which are fighting for that second bye. UT Arlington is next up, at 6-6, two games back of a tie for a bye, and then everyone else in the conference is under .500: Southern Utah is 4-8, while both Abilene Christian and Tarleton State are 3-8. Utah Valley is the top team in the conference by way of the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET, coming in at 86th. It’s also the only top-100 team, though, Cal Baptist is close, at 106, and UT Arlington is 148th for three top-150 programs. Utah Valley has lost both of its Quad 1 matchups — to Boise State and San Diego State — as well as its lone Quad 2 matchup against Cal Baptist. Cal Baptist lost to BYU by 31 points in its Quad 1 game, and is 1-4 in Quad 2 matchups. There hasn’t been a ton of opportunity for the higher-caliber matchups that could propel these teams into the bubble, but in the right matchup either could make some noise in March for a round with some favorable seeding. Such as not being put in a situation against BYU again, for instance. Utah Tech has been better in conference play than overall, and ranks 165th in NET. It’s entirely possible that the Trailblazers come out as conference champions and wind up in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, but their chances go up significantly if they can secure the second seed and the double-bye that it grants. For what it’s worth, Utah Tech might be 8-4, but it’s also 0-3 in Quad 1 and 0-5 in Quad 2 games, while going 12-3 in Quad 3 and 4 games. Every game left on the schedule for the Trailblazers is projected as Quad 3 and 4, however, meaning Utah Tech could very well get that bye and jump its chances of playing well into March. Western Athletic - Women’s College Basketball Leaders: Cal Baptist is also first in the women’s side of the Western Athletic, at 10-2, but it’s second in the conference in NET at 138th. Abilene Christian — ACU — is a game back in the standings but tops in NET at 105. Those are the lone top-150 teams: Southern Utah is 169th, and is also the last of the top-200s, though Tarleton State just misses at 202nd through Feb. 12. Southern Utah is third in the conference at 8-4, with Tarleton next at 6-6, then it’s UT Arlington and Utah Valley both at 4-8 and Utah Tech bringing up the rear at 1-11. California Baptist doesn’t have a major scorer like the men’s team, but thanks to spreading out the points a bit it does have the conference’s second-best Offensive Rating at 92.92 points per 100 possessions. Freshman guard Lauren Olsen leads the team with 15.2 points per game, while the next-best scorer, forward-center Emma Johansson averages 10.5 points while also ranking second in rebounds at 7.4 The 6-foot-3 senior from Sweden is also second in all of Division I in blocks per game, at 3.0. These two are joined by junior guard Khloe Lemon (11.9 points per game) and senior guard Filipa Barros, who does a little bit of everything: she leads the Lancers in rebounds at 9.4, is averaging 9.6 points per game and leads in assists with 4.7. It’s a balanced team, at least, which is why it might not be outstanding on a national level but ranks first in a number of offensive categories in the conference and is also best-in-conference on blocks and defensive rebounds. Abilene Christian has the best Net Rating in the WAC, however, with a 6.09 point differential between its adjusted Offensive and Defensive Ratings. It has a top-100 defense, allowing 87.60 points per 100 possessions, and while the offense isn’t quite as good, it is paired with that defense and no one else in the conference can make the same claim: as good as California Baptist has been in a lot of ways defensively, its Net Rating is just 1.51 thanks to a lesser offense. Southern Utah is the wild card here, as it’s just good enough in NET and in the conference that it could be a problem for either of those teams. Cal Baptist won the first meeting, but it took overtime, and Southern Utah won the second matchup. And while ACU won by 28 the first time this season, it lost by 3 points a few weeks later. With a game left against both teams, the possibility of sneaking into one of those byes is very real. And from there? The top two teams just need to win two games to make it to March Madness.