The event, which was held each season from 2007 to 2012, took place in early December each year, before the start of conference play.
[2] Initially, each annual series included four games featuring four teams from each conference.
Though most of the sites were not home arenas for the teams featured in the event, many were in the same cities as one of the participants.
Pittsburgh occasionally hosts games in the Consol Energy Center since it opened in 2010, where they played in the invitational in December of that year.
This format featured 12 games over three days beginning on the Thursday after Thanksgiving of each year.