Unlike most Division I conference tournaments in basketball, the Big Sky tournament does not involve all of the conference's teams. With the addition of North Dakota and Southern Utah to the conference for the 2012–13 season, expanding the number of teams from 9 to 11, the tournament expanded from six teams to seven. As in previous years, qualifying was based on overall conference record. The number of teams that failed to qualify also increased by one, going from three to four. All tournament games were played at the site of the regular-season champion. The men's tournament also returned to a Thursday-Friday-Saturday format.[1] The field was re-seeded after the first round so the #1 seed played the lowest remaining seed, while the highest remaining seeds faced off in the other semifinal.