Imagine a very good WCC team that is considered a bubble team.  If this bubble team gets to play in the tournament, they could potentially win some games and thus make money for the conference. Remember every game that a WCC team plays in, the money is spread to the other teams (yes even Portland). 

So it is in the best interest of ALL conference teams to put the best (and as many) teams possible INTO the tournament. 

If this "bubble" team loses in the opening round to a bad team, it would eliminate them from tournament consideration. This would be bad for the conference and why the conference has this strategy.

Another scenario... Imagine the conference tournament had a 'normal' bracket. What would happen to BYU's seeding in the NCAA if they lost in the opening round to a team like San Diego? The seeding could potentially drop considerably, thus harming BYU (and the conferneces) chances to win games (and make money)

The strategy is all about protecing teams from bad losses. In other (power) conferences, it's not a bad loss to lose to to lower teams.  So they don't employ this strategy this drastically. They do however offer bye's to the top seeds.