Every year at this time, the complaints rear up.

Nobody in Utah, it seems, thinks the Mountain West Conference tournament should be held annually in Las Vegas, because it gives the Rebels too much of an edge, but then everybody heads to Vegas anyway for a fun trip and a terrific basketball experience.

We all get that UNLV has an advantage here.

It's not a perfect solution.

But it's better than most, maybe all, of the other options.

The league recently reviewed the placement of the tournament, looking at 26 other venues around the West, and it came back convinced that Las Vegas was the best option. It's there at a minimum until 2013, and likely beyond. Early ticket sales for the event were stronger this year than at any other tournament at any other time in the conference's history. Whenever the complaining about competitive fairness starts, it brings back lousy memories of one bitter word: Denver.

Nothing against the Mile High City -- unless they try to host the league basketball tournament there, which they did over a dismal stretch a few years ago. It was a failure.

What's worse than facing UNLV, with its passionate and raucous fans creating all kinds of mayhem in the Thomas & Mack during the conference tournament? Here's what: facing UNLV in a mostly empty barn, with little passion, with little atmosphere, with just a few thousand fans on hand who actually give a rip about the outcome, and everybody else dressed like empty brown seats.

That's what an attempt at fairness brought.

Fans didn't want to go to Denver in early March, and attendance figures bore that out. The sessions there drew less than half the crowd the sessions in Las Vegas draw. It was completely fair, and nobody but the winner cared.

Basketball fans care much more in Vegas, and that's enough. People want to come here for their postseason roundball fix -- and for the party. How many leagues have an entertainment haven, on the magnitude of Las Vegas, smack dab in the middle of their boundaries? If they did, it's a good bet they'd have their postseason tournament there.

Everybody understands these tournaments are about money, straight on back to the original in the ACC. But if they're going to be about money, they might as well also be about providing an opportunity for the fans to have a good time.

Competitive fairness, in this case, can take a flying leap. If leagues were really about that, they wouldn't spend week after numbing week with their teams playing game after numbing game during an extended regular season proving who really is the best team, and then toss it all aside for a three- or four-day crescendo to determine who gets the automatic invite to the NCAA Tournament.

That's not really fair, no matter where the tournament is played.

Besides that, in a league like the Mountain West, the teams that have truly proved themselves worthy of a big tournament invite are already in before the conference tourney begins. They are forced in this setting to find motivation in seeking a higher seed next week, which is significant, but hardly the desperate push for survival that lesser teams feel.

So the competitive essence of the league tournament is for the top teams, who have already conquered league competition, to find motivation in getting a better jumping-off point with a slightly higher seed in the coming Dance and for good-to-mediocre outfits to eclipse less-worthy showings over the past two months with a last-ditch effort to show a little something now.

Fairness? Fuhgeddaboudit.

A real champion will find its way past UNLV, regardless, and benefit from the challenge.

This week is really about celebrating basketball, and having a great time, and there's no better place in the Mountain West for the greater spectrum of fans to do that than Vegas.

What, you want the league regular-season champ to host the tournament? And you want to head to a party in Albuquerque? Or Provo? Or Fort Collins? Or Fort Worth? Or Colorado Springs? Or Laramie?

San Diego wouldn't be bad, weather- and beach-wise, but it's on the far side of the conference and, really, what kind of hoop heritage can be found there? Salt Lake City is the lone exception, mostly because ... well, because it's darned convenient for all of us.

But even with UNLV holding its advantage at home, put it to a vote among MWC fans -- which the conference did, on a limited-survey basis, before moving the whole thing back to Vegas from Denver -- and Sin City would get the nod.

Folks just want to watch a little ball and have some fun.

So they should.

GORDON MONSON hosts the "Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com.