| Rules |
DETAILED POOL RULES - PLEASE READ!
How to Join
To join, go to the “Enter Your Picks” page and hit the "New" button. Fill out the online form with your Last Name (LN), First Name (FN) and Pick Number (P#). For example, John Smith’s first pick would be Smith, John, 1. His second pick would be Smith, John, 2, etc. The pick number is used if you want to enter more than one pick sheet. If you will only enter one sheet, you may leave P# blank. Also enter your e-mail address. Your name and e-mail address will NEVER be made available to a 3rd party and will only be used for participation in this and possible future pool tournaments.
You may enter as many times as you like. Each Entry requires a different pick number as part of your name. Entering the pool more than once requires you to fill out a new form with a different pick number for each entry. You will also need to pay $20 for each entry you sign up for.
Internet Explorer Users Please Read
If you use Internet Explorer as your browser, when you try and enter your name it may show a bar at the top which says "This website is using a scripted window to ask you for information. If you trust this website, click here to allow scripted windows..."
Click on the bar and then click "Temporarily Allow Scripted Windows".
Then, hit the "New" button again and enter your last name and first name. Then enter your email address and then enter any comments in the comments box - such as the name and email of anyone who has referred you to the pool. Then enter your picks.
If you use Firefox, you will not see the bar about scripted windows.
If you use Safari, well, you're probably on a Mac and I can't help you.
Once done, hit the "Submit" button. You should then see a confirmation screen saying your picks have been entered. You can also hit the "print picks" button at the bottom of the confirmation screen. You should also receive an email stating your picks have been recorded but not confirmed. If you have a problem use the contact link at the bottom of the page to send an email to the administrator.
Deadline for Joining
Round 2 of March Madness tips off on Thursday March 21th, so the deadline for joining will be 9:20am PDT/12:20PM EDT March 21th, 2019 (PLEASE NOTE THE TIME!) You must have your picks in by this date/time and must have made arrangements to pay for your picks by then. If you do not pay for your picks by the end of day on March 16 either directly or through whomever referred you to the pool, your picks will be purged from the system and you will no longer be eligible for the pool.
To enter, you have to Paypal the money to bob@bkane.com, Venmo the money (email for details) as a gift or personally hand him the money by the end of the day Friday 3/22/19. No checks, no grace period, no chasing after anyone. If you can’t Paypal or hand the money over directly by that time, either get a friend to Paypal the money on your behalf or don’t play. Winners will be paid out the day after the tournament ends. By Friday 3/22 we will know what the total prize pool will be. If you want to recommend a friend, feel free.
When you Paypal the money, if the email address you use for Paypal is different than the one you use to register for the pool, please note the pool email address you are paying for with your payment in the comments section. Also note that any payouts will be made to the Paypal address you use to pay for your entry. Also note, if you pay in cash in person and you win, your payout will be made through Paypal. I know some people will not like this. Unfortunately, this is the only way to do this where it doesn’t wind up costing the coordinator money.
The tourney teams and pairings are set. Hopefully you have watched those Conference Tournaments and have studied up on the#1 seeds and potential Cinderella teams. There are numerous sites you can check on for Tournament info including:
Teamrankings.com
ESPN.com Bracketology page
There are other free and paid sites depending upon how hardcore you are about this sort of thing.
The online pick sheet will be removed at the start of the tournament and no more entries will be accepted. If you have any questions on this, please send email to ncaa@bkane.com.
How to Play
Once the seeds are announced Sunday, March 17th, 2019, you may submit your picks online. You will receive an e-mail notification when the pick sheet is available for entry.
A Note about the 68 team field and the "Play-In Games"
For those of you who might not be aware, the NCAA has expanded the tournament field from 65 teams (with 1 play-in game) to 68 teams (with, essentially, 4 play-in games to be called the "First Four"). The main difference is that the winner of these games will not necessarily end up as a 16 Seed. It could be that the winner of the game ends up entering the bracket as a 12 Seed, or a 10 seed. The region and the bracket line each game will play for won't be announced until the selection show. If you don't know how this works you'll need to do a Google search for "first four".
After talking with a number of people and reading up on what's happening, the way these 4 games will be handled in our pool will be very similar to how the "Play-in" game has been handled in past years. The main reason for this is that it does not require you to pick the winners of the "First Four" games since most people don't have the interest and it doesn't require you to make your picks by Tuesday afternoon after Selection Sunday. So, the two teams playing for the spots in the bracket will show up similar to how the 64/65 teams showed up in previous years. If you don't understand this, don't worry - it will be obvious when you go to make your picks.
After the "First Four" games are played, we will update the Pairings to reflect the teams that won. So, it will work in essence the same way as the previous play-in just with 3 additional games and the winners of those games could end up anywhere in the bracket. If you have any questions on this, either send email to ncaa@bkane.com or don't make your picks until Wednesday March 20th.
Round Names
To help avoid confusion for your players, by default we will continue to name the rounds the same names as they have been in the past, however, if you want to change your round names you can easily do so by selecting the Tournament menu, then Options and click on the Matchups tab and here you can enter whatever round names you would like displayed on the pick sheet.
The Scoring System & Winning
Once the games are underway, you'll be ready to start tracking your progress. The scoring system is actually quite simple in that you earn points for every game in which you correctly predict the winner. This is the same scoring system that was used in previous years. Each round has a different point value assigned to it. Here is how the scoring breaks down:
1 point for every correctly predicted winner in Round 1
2 points for every correctly predicted winner in Round 2
4 points for every correctly predicted winner in the Sweet 16
8 points for every correctly predicted winner in the Elite 8
16 points for every correctly predicted winner in the Final Four
32 points for correctly predicting the National Champion
Underdog Picks
In addition to getting points for picking the winner of a game, you also get the difference in seeds as a bonus for picking an underdog to beat a favorite. So if a #16 seed beats a #1 seed in the first round (Ed. thought it would never happen but it did for the first time last year. No one piced it and it will probably never happen again...) and you pick the #16 seed, you receive 16 total points for that pick (1 point for picking a winner in round 1 and 15 bonus points for the underdog pick.)
For more detailed information on how Underdog Scoring works, see this page. Even if you're a veteran of the pool it is worthwhile to review this page as there is always a question every year about an underdog game.
Where the scoring gets tricky is when a team you predict to advance far in the tournament gets eliminated very early. For example, let's say you have UConn advancing to the Final Four by winning the East bracket. In a huge upset, Vanderbilt eliminates UConn in Round 1. So, not only do you lose that chance at 1 point by predicting wrong in Round 1, you also have killed your chance at the 2, 4, and 8 points you would have been awarded by UConn's advancement...all because of one game's result.
Second Chance Pool
We always throw out the possibility of a second chance pool and if we get enough interest, we'll do it. Normally we would do a second chance pool at the end of round three so if you want it, speak up!
Tiebreakers
If there is a tie, there are three possible tiebreakers to be used in the following order:
1) Closest to Total Points Scored in the Championship Game without going over
2) Picked Champion
3) Overall Tournament Pick Percentage
After the final game, the player with the most points in the main standings will be declared the overall tournament winner. The player with the second highest point total wins the second place prize and third, third. If for some reason the tie breaker does not determine a winner for one of the prizes, then the money is split (ie if a tie for first, 2 people split the combined 1st and 2nd place prizes 50-50; tie for second, 2 people split the combined 2nd and third place prizes 50-50; tie for third 2 people split the third place prize 50-50.)
Prize Info
Please see the prize page for the latest info on the pool prizes. Prize distribution takes into account our overhead to run the pool but we still strive to return over 90% of the total entry fees.
Pool Extras
Once the deadline has passed, the games will begin! Several areas of the site will contain some extras to add to your enjoyment of March Madness 2017. The Standings page will usually be updated three or four times daily in the first round and will allow you to see how you're faring against the competition. You will also be able to see several other reports, such as Projected Standings and Player Picks, where you can access everyone's completed bracket.
Tournament Committee Bracket
Once again you will see an entry called "Tour. Cmte. (No money)". This is how the Tournament Committee would score if they were in the pool. This is based on every higher seed winning every game over the lower seed. In 2009, the Tournament Committee "finished" in 15th place and the majority of entrants finished higher than the Committee. In 2008, the Committee finished tied for 6th and most entrants finished lower than the Committee. For you to consider yourself smart about college basketball, you should at least do better than this entry in the pool.
RPI Bracket
We'll also do an RPI bracket again this year. For those of you who don't know, RPI is the Ratings Percentage Index which is used by the NCAA Tournament Committee to help in deciding at-large teams and to seed all teams in the tournament. There are three different factors that make up the RPI - the team's winning percentage, average opponents winning percentage and average opponents opponents winning percentage. The RPI rankings that will be used in making this bracket are taken from the Team Rankings Page. You can Google "NCAA RPI Rankings" if you want to drill down into the specifics of the index.
RPI is different from the Tournament Committee Bracket because it is totally a numerical rating of all the teams in the tournament. Since the tournament provides automatic bids to 31 teams (30 conference tournament champions and the Ivy League regular season champion) and 37 at-large teams, it's possible that conference tournament champions given automatic bids would be rated lower that teams given at-large bids. For example in 2010, Cal was the regular season PAC-10 champion and had an RPI of 112.1, and received an at-large bid, Washington won the PAC-10 conference tourament, had an RPI of 111.1 and received an automatic bid to the tournament. Washington entered the tournament as an 11 seed in the East region and Cal entered the tournament as an 8 seed in the South region.
Former President's Bracket
If he does one again, we will also include the former President's bracket as well.
Please note the following!
1 - We will publish these brackets as soon as possible after Selection Sunday so you can review them within the context of the pool. An email blast with the links to these brackets will be sent out.
2 - None of the three brackets above contribute any money for the pool. The picks are there for information only. Use them as you wish.
Disclaimer
If anyone is found to be cheating or violating the rules, they can and will be disqualified from this and future pools. Again, anyone who pays to enter, yet fails to get their picks in on time, will still have their cash added to the pool. When you enter this pool, your email address is added to our mailing list (this list will NEVER be sold to anyone), and whenever a new pool is started, you will be contacted to announce the details on joining. If you do not wish to be on the mailing list, just send a note to ncaa@bkane.com to be removed from the mailing list. The rules will not be changed once the tournament begins. Any problems with rules MUST be addressed before the start of the tournament or after the tournament ends for NEXT year's pool.
Good luck and have fun!
If you have any questions, don't hesitate to send email to ncaa@bkane.com
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