Email Print Share

With 31 NCAA Division I conferences holding tournaments leading up to Selection Sunday, they serve as quite a tasty appetizer before the full course meal that is the NCAA Basketball Tournament. For the small and some mid-major conference teams, it's do-or-die to earn one of the coveted 68 invitations. For the big conferences, it's a chance to play for better seeding and friendlier venues, not to mention bragging rights.

These conference tournaments may seem to be all the rage now, as every single title game is broadcast on television, but that wasn't always the case. The Big Ten didn't have a tournament until 1998. The Pac-10, not until 2002 (except a brief fling in the late '80s). The SEC only brought it back in 1979 and it didn't really catch on until the conference expansion in 1992.

Also from RealClearSports -

• Top 10 March Madness Shockers
  
• Top 10 Names Made Famous By NCAA Tournament

The lynchpin for the growth of the conference tournament is clearly the soon-to-be split Big East, which was formed in 1980, right when the NCAA Tournament expanded to 48 teams and exploded into the phenomenon that it is today. But the most venerable and historically significant is the ACC tournament, which has been contested annually since 1954.

Out of these conference tournaments sometimes emerged unlikely champions. Some of them flamed out immediately after exhausting themselves in a three- or four-day sprint. Others went on sustained runs in the NCAA Tournament. One defied all odds to win the national championship, with its crazed young coach giddly running around in the immediate aftermath, looking for someone to hug. These, are our Top 10 Most Surprising Conference Tournament Champions (since 1980):