by our College Data Analytics TeamHere we dig into Basketball at Western Kentucky University, a winter sport — team by team, topic by topic, with gender and cross-sport comparisons throughout. WKU plays at the level of NCAA Division I-FBS as a member of Conference USA.
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The WKU men’s basketball team fields 18 athletes, with an NCAA multi-year squad size of 53. Academic data covers 52 athletes in this program for its academic reporting.
The WKU women’s basketball team fields 14 athletes, with an NCAA multi-year squad size of 60. The most recent cohort included 52 athletes in this program for its academic reporting.
Across both rosters, WKU fields 32 basketball athletes — 18 on the men’s side and 14 on the women’s.
Among the 11 varsity sports WKU sponsors, basketball sits at #4 by total roster size.
The men’s basketball program employs 6 coaches — 1 head coach and 5 assistants. Staffing-wise, 6 are full-time and 0 part-time. At the helm is Hank Plona.
The women’s basketball program employs 6 coaches — 1 head coach and 5 assistants. Of those, 6 work full-time and 0 part-time. The head coach is Greg Collins.
Side by side, the men’s program carries 6 coaches to the women’s 6.
Among the school’s 11 sports, basketball sits #2 by total coaching staff.
These numbers are reported to the U.S. Department of Education’s Equity in Athletics survey.
The WKU men’s basketball program brought in $2,976,729 in revenue against $2,976,729 in expenses, right at break-even. This comes to about $49,648 in operating expense per athlete, or $893,655 per team.
The WKU women’s basketball program generated $1,788,218 in revenue against $1,788,218 in expenses, right at break-even. This comes to about $44,995 in operating expense per athlete, or $629,933 per team.
Between the genders, the men’s team brought in $2,976,729 to the women’s $1,788,218 in revenue.
Among the school’s 11 sports, basketball sits #2 by revenue, or about 15% of the school’s total athletics revenue.
The men’s basketball team recorded an Academic Progress Rate (APR) of 971 (948 on a multi-year basis) and a Graduation Success Rate of 67%. It retained 92% of its athletes, with 94% remaining academically eligible.
The women’s basketball team earned an Academic Progress Rate (APR) of 984 (981 on a multi-year basis) and a Graduation Success Rate of 83%. It retained 96% of its athletes, with 100% remaining academically eligible.
Side by side, the men posted an APR of 971 and the women 984, with graduation success rates of 67% and 83% respectively.
Relative to the school’s average team APR of 989, basketball trails the average at 978.
If WKU places on one of our Best Schools for a Sport list, we include that ranking. College Factual’s sports rankings weigh both athletics and academics.
Some figures may be missing where the school did not report them.