The Southland Conference, a five-day men's and women's college basketball tournament, takes place at the Leonard E. Merrell Center in Katy from March 11-15. The conference will see teams compete for automatic bids to the 2015 NCAA tournament.

Katy ISD has hosted the tournament for eight consecutive years, each time bringing thousands of tourists to Katy, Kacey Reina director of tourism for the city of Katy said.

"Southland Conference is a wonderful event," she said. "[The event] brings in lots of players and fans and completely fills out our hotels. From a tourism perspective, it's a great event."

Randy Court, owner of Wild Wings Cafe located at 20940 Katy Freeway, has been designated as the Southland Conference's official post-game restaurant. He says he's thrilled with the influx of customers the basketball tournament brings to his business year after year.

"[The restaurant is expecting] somewhere between 400 and 900 guests coming in to the restaurant over the course of the tournament," Court said. "We've always had some pretty good sized groups come in after the tournament in the past, but this is the first year we've been named the official post game headquarters so we're expecting to have a lot going on that week."

Tickets for the Southland Conference can be purchased online at www.southland.org.