1988 Big Sky Conference Men's Basketball Tournament


The 1988 Big Sky Conference Men's Basketball Tournament was the thirteenth edition, held at Brick Breeden Fieldhouse at Montana State University in Bozeman, Montana.
Regular season champion Boise State defeated defending tournament champion and host in the championship game, to clinch their second Big Sky tournament. BSU had won the first conference tournament twelve years earlier.

Format

The Big Sky added in the summer of 1987 to bring total conference membership to nine, but EWU was ineligible for the postseason due to recruiting violations.
In the previous year's tournament, the top three seeds were upset in the first round and seventh-seed Idaho State won the title. The Bengals were then seeded sixteenth in the West region of the NCAA tournament and were routed in the first round by UNLV in
The Big Sky implemented a few changes to the bracket structure to reward regular season play. The top two teams in the league standings were given byes into the semifinal round, while the third- and fourth-seeded teams began play in the quarterfinals on Thursday. The remaining four teams played an additional game on Wednesday; four victories in as many days were now required for a lower-half team to win The top four seeds advanced to the semifinals and the tournament was won by the top-seed.

Bracket

NCAA tournament

Boise State received the automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, and no other Big Sky members were invited to the tournament or The Broncos were the fourteenth seed in the West region and gave third-seeded Michigan a scare in Salt Lake City, as the Wolverines' large lead eroded in the second half; Michigan prevailed by