Pac-12 Men's Basketball Tournament

The Pac-12 men's basketball tournament is the conference championship for the Pacific-12 Conference. It takes place each year in Los Angeles and since 2003 has been known as the Pacific Life Pac-12 tournament. The first Pac-12 men's tournament was held in 1987, though it was disbanded for 10 years in the 1990s.

The winner of the Pac-12 tournament receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and is dubbed the conference champion. Colorado won the tournament in 2012, its first year as a member of the conference.

The earliest versions of a championship for the conference started in 1923, when the then-Pacific Coast Conference hosted a three-game series between its two division champions. When the NCAA tournament began in 1939, that series' winner earned the conference's bid to the national championship.

In 1955, the conference eliminated its divisional play and began a red-robin format. The playoff then was eliminated, and for the next 30 years the regular-season conference champion earned the NCAA berth.

By 1987, the then-Pac-10 was one of only three conferences that did not have a tournament to determine which squad was given the NCAA bid. So in 1987, the conference held its first postseason tournament. The UCLA Bruins won the inaugural tournament.

The Arizona Wildcats won the second Pac-10 tournament in 1988 and went on to win the next two, in 1989 and 1990, as well. But after the 1990 tournament, poor attendance, complaints from coaches and a lack of revenue led the Pac-10 to disband the tournament and return the NCAA automatic bid to the regular-season winner.

That policy stood for the next 10 years, until 2000. By then, the Pac-10 and the Ivy League were the only conferences without a postseason tournament, and the conference's athletics directors voted almost unanimously to restart the tournament. The vote occurred in 2000, and the tournament resumed play in 2002.

The new tournament featured the eight teams with the best regular-season conference records. Arizona won the conference crown again in the first newer edition.

Since then, the conference has seen great parity in its tournament winners -- Arizona, Oregon, Stanford, Washington, UCLA and USC all have won since it was restarted. The tournament was expanded to include all 10 teams in 2006 and again in 2012 when the conference expanded to 12 teams. The Pac-12 tournament format gives byes to the top four teams in the conference, with the remaining eight teams playing in the first round. The winners advance to the quarterfianls, where they face the top four seeds.

After the Pac-10 tournament was founded in 1987, it was hosted by a different conference school each year. UCLA hosted the inaugural tournament, and Arizona and Arizona State also hosted during the first editions.

When conference athletic directors decided to restart the tournament, they included in the contract that the tournament would be played each year at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Attendence has declined each year at Staples Center, leading the conference to consider moving the tournament starting in 2013, when a new television deal with Fox Sports Net and ESPN takes effect.