It is a single-elimination tournament and seeding is based on regular season records.
[1] The winner receives the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA Men's Division II Basketball Championship.
This pattern continues for the third- and fourth-seeded teams.
From 2000 to 2011, these sites were the on-campus gymnasium of Northern Sun teams.
Since 2012, however, these have been neutral-site arenas not home to any Northern Sun programs.