NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Standard Oil. AT&T. Microsoft. The National Collegiate Athletic Association.

That would seem like strange company for the NCAA. But Monday, just hours after the cheers have died down from the first weekend of the organization's basketball tournaments, its attorneys will be in federal district court in Columbus, Ohio, defending the NCAA from the first of two separate antitrust suits. The suit charges the association is improperly using its market clout to force out of business a series of other basketball tournaments.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs in the two cases argue, pretty convincingly, that new rules from the NCAA are brass-knuckle attacks, worthy of John D. Rockefeller or Bill Gates, on their clients' ability to host college tournaments.

The plaintiffs say the rules are there to benefit the six major basketball conferences, which they say would like their own preseason events to have less competition.

The NIT and other tournaments are that NCAA rules trip up fair competition.

The subject of the suit in court Monday is a so-called "two-in-four" rule says that colleges can only participate in two certified pre-season tournaments every four years. The conferences' tournaments are generally not subject to that restriction, though. Since the rule has been in effect for two years already, next year and the year after is when its impact will really start to be felt, as teams reach their limits.

"If we don't win an injunction next week, our guys are in big trouble," Bill Markovits, the plaintiff's attorney, told me.

Markovits represents a group of promoters who staged about half of the 25 events, like the Black Coaches Association Basketball Classic and the Coaches V. Cancer Classic. Markovits says that for tournaments to work, they generally need to include at least two premier schools to attract fans, television coverage and sponsorships.

The presence of the big schools also lets the smaller colleges have their only chance to play the big boys on a neutral site. Without the big schools, there's not much incentive for the smaller schools to make the trip, either.

There just aren't enough big name schools from the six so-called "power" conferences to go around if the two-in-four rule is enforced, Markovits said. He said because of commitments that those schools have already made to the National Invitation Tournament and the other two most popular pre-season tournaments - the Maui Classic and Great Alaska Shootout, only 20 of those power conferences' schools can go to any other pre-season tournament the next two years.

"If the judge issues an injunction, these tournaments can scramble and get teams and survive," said Markovits. "If he doesn't, mathematics says most won't be able to make it."

The other suit is by NIT, which once was the nation's premier college basketball event. It now holds a still-popular pre-season tournament as well as a second-tier post-season tournament. Its suit focuses on a rule that would require teams that participate in its pre-season event to count it as four games on their schedule rather than one.

"Schools can't afford to do this," said Jeffrey Kessler, the NIT's attorney. "The prominent schools can't give up two or three home games for the prospect of maybe playing four games on a neutral court. It's financially impossible. It'd be end of the event."

The NCAA has at least temporarily backed off on the four-game rule the NIT is challenging, although it continues to enforce another rule that member schools invited to the NCAA post-season tournament must attend.

Without that rule, which the NIT is also challenging in its lawsuit, Kessler said the NIT could once again invite top schools unhappy with their seeding in the NCAA to its own post-season tournament, opening up the possibility of both post-season events producing a winner with the claim on the national champion title.

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"In the early 70's you had wonderful games and attention for two competing tournaments," said Kessler. "Gradually the NCAA decided it was worth more and more money to drive the NIT into second class status."

The NCAA insists the two-in-four rule is trying to help spread around participation in the tournaments between a wider range of schools, rather than have them dominated by the major programs.

"That improves the product of college basketball by improving competition," said Else Cole, the NCAA's general counsel. When I asked her if the tournaments could stay viable with only the smaller, so-called "mid-major" college programs being the only ones left to participate, she responded, "There's a question of how viable some are independent of the rule."

But that answer seems disingenuous, given common sense coupled with efforts of the other tournament's sponsors. The tournaments have clearly been a success until now, but it is tough to picture Valparaiso University, Gonzaga or Florida Atlantic being able to support a tournament on their own, despite the attention that they've won with some recent trips to the NCAA.

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The NCAA officials say they're confident that its ability to set the limits will be upheld by the courts, given previous decisions granting it wide discretion in setting rules to protect student athletes. But attorneys in the two cases say these rules are about business practices and unfair limits on competition, not the students' best interests.

"Our clients compete with the institutions themselves and the NCAA to promote Division 1 basketball, and they should be able to compete freely and fairly," said Markovits. "It's clear this came about because of money, it's a commercial restriction, and everything else is a sham."