Getting Ready for March Madness
In my opinion, March Madness is the best sporting event in the world. The opening rounds on Thursday and Friday is packed with action and every year there is guaranteed drama and at least one unexpected Cinderella team. It may be December, but College Basketball is happening now and March is not too far away.
There are some great teams this year and people are already picking winners. Here are the current favorites based on Vegas odds:
- Duke – 7/1
- Kansas – 9/1
- Kentucky – 9/1
- North Carolina – 9/1
I personally think this is Michigan State’s year to go all the way, but there are clearly great teams representing all major conferences that have a great chance to win it all.
Putting together a tournament bracket is a great way to stay involved throughout the tournament, but there are a few other ways to track players and teams and organize a tournament with friends and coworkers. Here are a couple of ideas:
Playoff Fantasy
Similar to NBA fantasy basketball you can draft college basketball players on college teams in the NCAA basketball tournament. Websites like Fantasy Postseason make it easy to get started, and you can operate the league on a per round basis. To make it more challenging, you can also select certain players right from the start and then hope their team continues to advance.
There are other factors you can introduce based on how involved everyone in your league wants to be in the process. Fantasy Postseason offers salary caps, different formats, various lineup settings and different playoff scoring options.
Picking Losers
A fun twist to picking a perfect bracket is to put together a bunch of brackets and make the objective to not get a single game right. Unlike the normal NCAA basketball brackets the winner is often decided in the first weekend, and is sort of the mini-tournament prior to the main tournament. Scoring typically follows the same system of a normal bracket except the goal is to get the least number of points possible.
Another idea to make it more interesting is instead of having a reward for the winner, make a punishment for the loser. There are often several “winners” anyway with how the point system is set up, and after all, the theme is all about losing.