Breaking down the Big West Conference basketball tournament schedule

The Big West Conference Championship stretches from March 9-13, with games on four different dates. All games will be played at the Michelob Ultra Arena inside the Mandalay Bay casino in Las Vegas. The tournament will include 10 teams, who will play single-elimination games with no reseeding.

All games will be on ESPN platforms, but the early rounds will be on ESPN3 which is broadcast online only.

The UC Santa Barbara Gauchos are the favorite, but they were swept by the UC Irvine Anteaters earlier this season, who enter as the No. 2 seed.

Here is the bracket for the 2021 Big West Conference Tournament:

* All times ET

Tuesday, March 9

Game 1: No. 9 Long Beach State 85-63 over No. 8 C-SUN
Game 2: No. 10 Cal Poly 87-82 over No. 7 Cal State Fullerton

Thursday, March 11

Game 3: No. 1 UC Santa Barbara 95-87 over No. 9 Long Beach State
Game 4: No. 4 UC Davis 58-56 over No. 5 CSU Bakersfield
Game 5: No. 2 UC Irvine 58-51 over No. 10 Cal Poly
Game 6: No. 3 UC Riverside 62-52 over No. 6 Hawai’i

Friday, March 12

Game 7: No. 1 UC Santa Barbara 71-55 over No. 4 UC Davis
Game 8: No. 2 UC Irvine 78-61 over No. 3 UC Riverside

Saturday, March 13

Championship: No. 1 UC Santa Barbara 79-63 over No. 2 UC Irvine

The Gauchos get back to the Big Dance for the first time since 2012. UCSB was only 13-3 in the conference this year, but the advanced statistics had them light years over every other team in the conference, and this isn’t a stunner by the odds. Senior guard JaQuori McLaughlin was the best player in the Big West this season, and will be the key if Santa Barbara can steal a game in the bracket.