Loaded Conference Tourney Slate Makes Madison Square Garden CBB Epicenter Again

Pope visits. NBA All-Star Games. Westminster Dog Shows. Republican National Conventions. NHL games. Grammy Awards.

Madison Square Garden does it all. And this year, MSG will host both the Big Ten and Big East men's basketball tournaments in the next two weeks, ushering in the greatest time of the year—March Madness.

Heck, it won't even be March when this stretch of 22 games in 11 days at the Mecca of Basketball begins. We may have to call it February Fracas when the first round of the Big Ten tournament takes place Wednesday.

It was weird when every team in the Big Ten played a pair of conference games back in the first weekend of December, but it was something that had to be done to set up the schedule for this moment.

And it was a small price to pay for what should be an incredible week of basketball.

"We think the entire college basketball world's eyes will be on the Big Ten tournament," said Joel Fisher, MSG's executive vice president of marquee events. "They have the stage all to themselves."

With all due respect to the Ohio Valley, Missouri Valley, Metro Atlantic Athletic and other early conference tournaments, Fisher makes a worthwhile point here. As much as we love the madness of concurrent major-conference tournaments, those final few days before Selection Sunday are impossible to keep up with. Even with multiple viewing devices and spreadsheets dedicated to the cause, it's easy to lose track of some outstanding quarterfinal and semifinal action.

But before the ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC and American Athletic tournaments start battling each other for national attention, the Big Ten tournament will be the undisputed main attraction.

Granted, the Big Ten could have gotten the same treatment by playing a week earlier than usual in Chicago, Washington D.C., or any city it wanted, but the allure of playing at Madison Square Garden was the necessary catalyst for change.

G Fiume/Getty Images

Penetrating the NYC market has been an obvious goal for Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany. It's why it added Maryland and Rutgers before the 2014-15 season. It's why it opened up a Big Ten office in New York in April 2014. And it's why Ohio State battled Minnesota at Madison Square Garden this January in what is the third year of a four-year deal of a Super Saturday, which is a doubleheader that includes a men's hockey game.

"On those Saturdays, (Delany) has been able to bring both a conference basketball game as well as a conference hockey game here," said Fisher. "And as we've done that four-year deal, part of the agreement and thought process was that one year—this particular year—he would bring the conference tournament here as well."

Of course, with Madison Square Garden long cemented as the home of the Big East tournament and its countless magical moments—who will ever forget the six-overtime game between Syracuse and Connecticut in 2009?—the Big Ten tournament needs to be played a week earlier.

But there might not be a venue better equipped to host two major-conference tournaments in the same year.

"We have the best building staff in the world," said Fisher. "We turn around the building where we do a hockey game and a basketball game on the same day. We even have a tennis event on March 5 and a [New York] Rangers game (March 6) in between the Big Ten and Big East tournaments (the latter starts March 7). We're constantly busy, but from an operational standpoint, this will be no problem at all for us."

Fisher did not have exact numbers for ticket sales or credential requests, but he said the interest for both tournaments has been "tremendous." With three potential top-10 NBA draft picks (Michigan State's Jaren Jackson Jr. and Miles Bridges, as well as Villanova's Mikal Bridges) playing at MSG, it's a safe assumption there will be some pro scouts in attendance.

Strip tickets—packets that can get a fan into every game of a tournament—were basically sold out for both the Big Ten and the Big East by last Friday. Tickets for individual games and sessions just went on sale this week, but it's unlikely that there will be many available, given the popularity of the strip tickets.

It's worth mentioning that the ACC tournament will also be taking place just a few miles away in Brooklyn, meaning New York City is hosting 50 percent of the major-conference tournaments this year.

But if things break correctly, Madison Square Garden will be the site for the two best games of the entire championship week.

Gary Landers/Associated Press

The Big Ten championship could be a battle between second-ranked Michigan State and eighth-ranked Purdue, in which the winner will be in great position for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, depending on how things play out the following weekend in the other conferences.

And the Big East championship could be a battle for the No. 1 overall seed between fourth-ranked Villanova and third-ranked Xavier. It's not quite 2009 when the Big East got three No. 1 seeds, but locking up two spots on the top line would be some kind of feat for the "New" Big East.

The Big East is also going to be possibly the "bubbliest" tournament, as Butler, Creighton, Marquette, Providence and Seton Hall each enters the final week of its regular season with work left to do to lock up a bid.

Long story short, there will be no shortage of college basketball intrigue at Madison Square Garden between now and Selection Sunday on March 11. Never before has there been an opportunity to camp out at one location for two weeks and take in this much action, and we look forward to reading the stories that come from the lucky souls who get to attend all 22 games.

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.