Campus Confidential

By Adam Abramson

March: In like a lion, out with great basketball.

It's time for arguably the best sporting event of the year and I'm as excited as Bill Raftery's gonna be when Kevin Durant hits his shot with "A little kisssss."

When bowl season ended is when college basketball watching season began, so I feel I'm ready to pick 'em this year (although there's about 20 teams out there that are realistic contenders).

In the spirit of the season, Newsday is holding a bracket challenge where the readers get to pick against myself, Mark La Monica and possibly Newsday's college basketball writers Joe Gergen and Erik Boland (in contract negotiations with them...). I'm hammering out the details with respect to prizes (hopefully we'll get something going...but there's a huge communication void around here), but at the very minimum you can come on and talk smack to me on the blog or site.

Bracket challenges aren't exactly my favorite. I always find a way to finish behind some girl who called me on Selection Sunday wondering the mascots and colors of George Mason, Bradley and Witchita State...but, I am challenging all of you to beat the guys who get paid to do this. Give us your best shot.

We'll be running two challenges on here, one you fill out in its entirety before the start of the tournament and the other is a round-by-round competition. Everything is explained on the site. Tell your friends, let's make this big so I look good.

Click on the banner in this post (the one on the left, can't miss it) and sign up for the two groups I've created.

The Pick 'Em All at Once has a group called "Newsday."
The Round by Round is called "Newsday Round by Round." Creative, I know.

SportsBallot, the company who puts all of this together, has a prize system of their own. You get credits for referring friends, so do it.

While I have you here, I'll let you in on two other tournament games I like much better than bracket challenges. One is a team draft and the other is a player pool. The rules are below.

It's a little late for the team draft because most of the mid-major conferences have finished their tournaments and a lot of automatic bids have been handed out, but it's not entirely too late (It's too late after Selection Sunday). The player pool, you'll have from Sunday-Thursday morning to get a group of people together for picking, so make it happen.

The Team Draft

• The draft must take place before Selection Sunday.

• This game should be capped at eight or nine people.

• Once the field of competitors is set, we will hold a live draft. Eight numbers will be placed into a hat and a random order will be created. Draft will be snake-style (Round 1: 1-8, Round 2: 8-1, Round 3: 1-8, etc. etc.) Eight rounds.

• When your selection comes up, you must select a team who you think will make the field of 65 and will do well.

• Once all of the teams have been drafted, each competitor will receive one point for every team drafted that makes the field of 65 on Selection Sunday.

• Once the tournament begins, each competitor will receive a point for every game one of their teams wins in the tournament.

• If you're playing for money, two prizes are awarded in this competition: Half the scratch will go to the person who accumulated the most pots and the other half will go to the person who drafted the winning team.
  

The Player Pool

• The draft will take place after Selection Sunday but before the start of the tournament.

• No cap on how many people are in this one…the more there are, the tougher it’ll be.

• Drafting will be in the same fashion as the team draft.

• When you selection comes up, you will draft a player from any team in the field of 65.

• The goal is to draft a group of players who you feel will contribute the most points, rebounds and assists (combined) throughout the duration of the Tournament.

• At the end, the person who has the most combined points, rebounds and assists from all of their players will win.