nonetheless, the tournament has consistently utilized a simple single-elimination style tournament. through the 2018 edition of the tournament, with a few exceptions, all conference members were typically invited to each tournament. depending on the total number of teams in the league during a particular year, higher-seeded teams have sometimes received byes into the quarterfinal or semifinal rounds. teams have always been seeded based on regular season conference records, although some modifications were made when the league was split into divisions during the 2000s.