Your Guide to Finding College Basketball Conference Tournaments Online

The best way to fill out a winning March Madness bracket is to watch the college basketball conference tournaments and nearly every game will be streaming live online on a computer, or mobile device. The NCAA men’s basketball conference tournaments are a warm-up for March Madness, with each of the 30 conference tournament winners receiving an automatic invite to the Big Dance later this month. This is the time of year when sports fans start thinking about March Madness brackets, and yearn for detailed analysis of tiny mid-major college basketball teams whose schools have fewer than 8,000 students. After all, a tiny mid-major team whose school has fewer than 8,000 students was just ranked the No. 1 team in the country – but we’ll see if Gonzaga can survive the West Coast Conference Tournament (WCC Tournament).

The conference basketball tournaments are underway, and most games are streaming live online – but on nearly a half-dozen different websites, some of which are well known and others that are obscure. Some of the tournaments require a cable subscription to watch online, and some require a cable subscription plus certain channels being included in your cable bundle. Other tournaments are available for a small one-month fee, and still others are available online absolutely free. Let’s bracket out which conference basketball tournaments are available on which sites, and how to watch them.

WATCH COLLEGE BASKETBALL CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS ONLINE

A full 23 of the 30 conference tournaments are streaming live at WatchESPN, the site that lets you watch ESPN online. Accessing the WatchESPN stream requires an active cable TV subscription. The first round of the Colonial Athletic Tournament is also available live to cable subscribers at no additional cost, as long as your cable provider carries the NBC Sports Network, or the Comcast SportsNet channel, and you live outside certain East Coast television markets. The Patriot League Tournament is available to anyone willing to pay a $7.95 fee for a one-month subscription to Patriot League All Access.

WatchESPN’s conference tournament coverage is quite thorough, but is also riddled with regional blackouts for games played near you. To see if a game you want to watch will be blacked out locally, look at the WatchESPN conference tournament schedule. If the phrase “Subject to Blackout” or “Blacked Out on ESPN” appears below the game, those words will link to an online map showing areas that cannot watch the game live. The good news is that once the game is over in those areas, the game will be made available on demand shortly after its conclusion.

WATCH NCAA CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS ONLINE FOR FREE

For those who don’t have a cable subscription or online subscriptions, you can still watch some conference tournaments on sites that let you watch network TV for free. The Big Ten Tournament semifinals and championship game will be streamed online for free as well as the decisive games from the Conference USA Tournament and Mountain West Tournament, courtesy of CBS Sports. Meanwhile, the ACC Tournament is being streamed online for free at the ACC Network. The Atlantic Sun Conference will stream conference semifinals and finals for free at A-Sun.tv (registration required for access).

GO MOBILE: HOW TO WATCH CONFERENCE TOURNAMENTS ON TABLET OR SMARTPHONE

Unfortunately, there is not one single app that will play all of the conference tournaments on an iPhone, iPad, or Android device. However, there will be a March Madness app that streams all NCAA Tournament games when it begins on March 19.

Most tournaments are carried on ESPN, and you can watch them on a mobile device with the WatchESPN app and requires a cable subscription to watch games. Looking for a free mobile option? Check out the free CBS Sports app. It will stream any tournament games covered by the CBS Network. The Colonial Athletic League Tournament will be streamed to mobile devices via the CAA Mobile app, though it does have some pretty serious broadcast restrictions (see below).

COLLEGE BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT ONLINE SCHEDULE

The complete 2013 conference basketball tournament schedule, plus the online channels streaming each tournament live, can be found below. Note: Not all tournaments are carried in their entirety on all sites – some sites will only live stream the semi-finals and tournament finals, others will only live stream preliminary rounds. Check the links below for broadcast schedules

Watch ACC Tournament Online
March 14-17
WatchESPN, ACC Network (free)

Watch America East Tournament Online
March 8-10, 16
WatchESPN

Watch Atlantic 10 Tournament Online
March 14-17
Not all games are online, though CBS Sports will live stream the final Atlantic 10 regular season showdown of Temple vs. VCU on Sunday, March 10 at 12 Noon ET.

Watch Atlantic Sun Tournament Online
March 6-9
WatchESPN

Watch Big 12 Tournament  Online
March 13-16
WatchESPN

Watch Big East Tournament  Online
March 12-16
WatchESPN

Watch Big Sky Tournament Online
March 14-16
WatchESPN

Watch Big South Tournament Online
March 5, 7, 9-10
WatchESPN

Watch Big Ten Tournament Online
March 14-17
CBS Sports

Watch Big West Tournament Online
March 14-16
WatchESPN

Watch Colonial Athletic Tournament Online
March 9-11
CAA.tv (Available to cable subscribers whose carriers include the NBC Sports Network or a Comcast SportsNet channel, however  games are not available in certain East Coast television markets.)

Watch Conference USA Tournament Online
March 13-16
CBS Sports

Watch Horizon League Tournament Online
March 5-12
WatchESPN

Watch MAAC Tournament Online
March 8-11
WatchESPN

Watch MAC Tournament Online
March 11, 13-16
WatchESPN

Watch Mid-Eastern Athletic Tournament Online
March 11-16
WatchESPN

Missouri Valley Tournament
March 7-10
Not available online, but post-game press conferences will be streamed live at Valley-Live.tv.

Watch Mountain West Tournament Online
March 13-16
CBS Sports

Watch Northeast Tournament Online
March 6, 9, 12
WatchESPN

Watch Ohio Valley Tournament Online
March 6-9
WatchESPN

Watch PAC-12 Tournament Online
March 13-16
WatchESPN

Watch Patriot League Tournament Online
March 6, 9, 13
Patriot League All-Access ($7.95 for one month), Quarterfinal games are streamed live, while semi-finals and championship games will be available on demand after the games’ conclusions.

Watch SEC Tournament Online
March 13-17
WatchESPN

Watch Southern Tournament Online
March 8-11
WatchESPN

Watch Southland Tournament Online
March 13-16
WatchESPN

Watch Summit League Tournament Online
March 9-12
WatchESPN

Watch Sun Belt Tournament Online
March 8-11
WatchESPN

Watch SWAC Tournament Online
March 12-16
WatchESPN

Watch WAC Tournament  Online
March 12, 14-16
WatchESPN

Watch WCC Tournament Online
March 6-9, 11
WatchESPN

Which tournaments are you looking forward to watching? Can tiny Gonzaga possibly survive as Number 1?  Or will another Cinderella team be fit for glass slippers? Hand out your bids in the comments section below.