what do conference tournaments mean?

While everyone is getting ready for the Big Dance to start next week, this week is a huge bonanza of basketball tournaments for each conference.

Why do the conferences do this? For one, the winner of the tournament gets an automatic bid into the field of 68 teams for the NCAA Tournament.  For the most part, the team that wins the conference tournament was likely to make the field anyway based on the strength of their season.  However, if you are a team "on the bubble," meaning there's a chance you won't make it to postseason play, a strong showing in the conference tournaments can help get you into the NCAA Tournament.

For instance, Michigan State likely won't make the NCAA Tournament, but they won their game on Thursday, and if they win 3 more games, they'll rescue a disappointing season by getting the automatic bid for winning the Big Ten tournament.

Michigan State's Kalin Lucas

Another reason of course is to hold the tournament in a nice city to make some money for the conference.