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Tournament Time in Vegas

Its that time of year again where teams and fans come from all over the country to experience March Madness. There is nothing like it. The excitement, drama and sheer entertainment value descends upon Vegas starting this week.

Although the actual NCAA Basketball Tournament doesn't start until March 19th, the madness begins with the qualifying for the Big Dance during the next two weeks. Las Vegas is the home of four of these conference tournaments for both the men and women.

The West Coast Conference enters its 18th season of coming to Las Vegas to crown a champion. Although, the conference doesn't have a local team involved it has been a staple at the Orleans Arena since 2009. It has supplied one of the first teams to earn an automatic bid into the NCAA Tournament as it happens one week prior to most of the other major conference tourneys. The excitement and atmosphere on the second Tuesday Night of March is always exciting.

Even though the 11 conference teams that come to battle annually, the results have pretty much been the same on the men's side. Another name for the tournament could be called the Gonzaga Invitational as the Zags have won 13 of the 17 championships. St. Mary's has won the other four and every year one of those two teams has appeared in the Final. The Championship game has featured a Gonzaga vs. St Mary's matchup 13 times including the past four renditions.

Despite the redundancy it has been fantastic. Knowing the potential matchup of the title game between these two powerhouses has added to the experience. There isn't much separation between the two programs evident as they have split their two regular season meetings in four of the past six years. St. Mary's actually has held the upper hand winning five of the past eight contests including a 70-59 victory last week in the regular season finale.

The Mountain West Conference which features UNLV, takes over the Thomas & Mack Center the following weekend while the Big West hunkers down at Lee's Family Forum in Henderson and the Western Athletic Conference occupies the Orleans after the WCC crows their champion.

Its a time when basketball is king in Vegas and even when the conferences tournaments are concluded, fans flock to betting capital of the world to watch and wager on the madness unfold on television screens in ballrooms and theatres from the opening weekend of the NCAA Tournament until a national champion is crowned on April 6th. Let the Madness begin!