College basketball player Hank Gathers died after collapsing during a West Coast Conference tournament semifinal game in Los Angeles.

College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athletic bodies, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athletic Association (USCAA), the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), and the National Christian College Athletic Association (NCCAA). These national affiliation organizations may be subdivided into divisions, generally based on the number and level of scholarships that may be provided to the athletes. Institutions that play in Division II of the NCCAA are typically small Bible colleges. Some institutions may have multiple affiliations with the most common being USCAA and NCCAA. The NCAA does not allow this. An institution does not need to join a national affiliation orginaization to play college basketball, but this is very rare. As of 2025, Cheyney, a former NCAA member, fields a team with no national affiliation.

Eric Wilson "Hank" Gathers Jr. was an American college basketball player for the Loyola Marymount Lions in the West Coast Conference (WCC). As a junior in 1989, he became the second player in NCAA Division I history to lead the nation in scoring and rebounding in the same season. Gathers was a consensus second-team All-American as a senior in 1990. His No. 44 was retired by the Lions, who also placed a statue of him in his honor outside their home arena Gersten Pavilion.

The West Coast Conference men's basketball tournament is the annual concluding tournament for the NCAA college basketball in the West Coast Conference (WCC). The winner of the tournament each year is guaranteed a place in the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament for that season. Through 2008, the tournament was played on a rotating basis at the home courts of member teams. The 2009 edition was the first played at a neutral site, namely Orleans Arena in Paradise, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas. The semifinals are broadcast nationally on ESPN2 and the championship is broadcast nationally on ESPN.