Coming March 15

NCAA Tournament Challenge

Description: This contest is for the college basketball predictions post-season.  The contest admits a field of the 32 best college basketball predictors from the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings.  Just like the NCAA Tournament, this is a single elimination, head to head style prediction contest.  The last one standing will be acknowledged as the year's best college basketball predictor, win a cash prize and be entered in the CFBPredictions.com Winners Wall.

How To Qualify: Every college basketball team must earn a bid to play in the NCAA Tournament and it is the same for the NCAA Tournament Challenge.  To qualify, you must finish in the top 32 of the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings by the end of the regular season.

How To Play: Participants will predict winners of each game of each round of the NCAA Tournament.  There are no confidence points in this contest.  For one of the games each round, participants will be asked to predict a margin of victory for their selected winner.

Scoring: 32 participants will be matched up based on seedings and will predict the outcomes of Round 1 of the NCAA Tournament.  The participant with the best record will advance to the second round.  Those 16 participants will predict second round games of the NCAA Tournament.  The participant with the best record will advance to the Sweet 16.  Those 8 participants will predict Sweet 16 games of the NCAA Tournament.  This single elimination continues on with the Elite 8, Final Four and Championship rounds of the NCAA Tournament until there is one participant left after the National Championship game.

If records are tied between two participants at the end of each round, the participant with the most bonus points from the margin of victory game will advance.  If bonus points are the same, the participant with the best NCAA Tournament Challenge record up to that point in the contest will advance. If contest records to date are the same, the higher seed will advance.

Seedings: There will be 2 regions on the NCAATC bracket, each one with 1 through 16 seeds, just like the real NCAA Tournament.  So there will be two 1 seeds, two 2 seeds, two 3 seeds and so on, up to 16.  Below is a list of where each of the seeds will be taken from.

1 seeds: No. 1-2 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
2 seeds: No. 3-4 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
3 seeds: No. 5-6 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
4 seeds: No. 7-8 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
5 seeds: No. 9-10 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
6 seeds: No. 11-12 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
7 seeds: No. 13-14 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
8 seeds: No. 15-16 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
9 seeds: No. 17-18 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
10 seeds: No. 19-20 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
11 seeds: No. 21-22 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
12 seeds: No. 23-24 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
13 seeds: No. 25-26 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
14 seeds: No. 27-28 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
15 seeds: No. 29-30 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings
16 seeds: No. 31-32 on the NCAA Weekly Challenge standings

(all times tentative; check here or Forum Announcements for official times when available)

Deadline To Play First Round: Thursday March 18; Noon ET

Deadline To Play Sweet 16: Saturday March 20; 1:00 PM ET

Deadline To Play Elite Eight: Thursday March 25; 2:00 PM ET

Deadline To Play Final Four: Saturday March 27; 4:00 PM ET

Deadline To Play Championship(Final Four games): Saturday April 3; 6 PM ET

Deadline To Play Championship(Championship game): Monday April 5; 7 PM ET

(all times tentative; check here or Forum Announcements for official times when available)

Prize: The winner will receive $75.  CFBPoints will be awarded to all Sweet 16 participants(see table below). The cash prize will be sent via PayPal to the email address registered on this site.  If you do not have a PayPal account, you will receive an email upon winning the contest, with easy instructions for creating a PayPal account.