So what’s going on this year? What’s new?
These are the kind of questions that should be reserved for the FAQ section. Nonetheless, this page is solely dedicated to division I men’s (sorry ladies) march madness basketball and other important information pertaining to the bracket. No other random ass shit, yet.
The tournament is starting on March 19th at roughly 9:15AM PST. Like every other year since 2011, there will be a First Four round on Tuesday and Wednesday held prior to the actual tournament starting. Most people don’t actually know how the First Four works, or what it is, so allow me to briefly explain.
There are 2 types of ways a team can make the march madness:
1. Automatic Bid: Winning the conference tournament
2. At-Large Bid: Being selected based on season performance by a group of commissioners and athletic directors
Afterwards, a true seed list is created. This is the ranking of every team from 1-68. Here it is determined that the 4 lowest seeded automatic bid teams battle it out for two 16-seed spots and the 4 lowest at-large teams battle it out for two other spots (usually 11-seeds, but it depends on pool strength that year). I’ve always been torn about this, especially because it forces conference champions to win 1 more game to survive, but I guess it adds another element to what I would describe as the best sports tournament of the year.
I always get asked this question a few times every year so figured I would just address this here first to square it away.
So yeah nothing about the tournament, besides where the games are played, the teams involved, the players, coaches, refs and scores, are new. The format remains.
What is new, is what is coming to Madness this year. Explore the website, or just read chronologically as the way the author intended and you will see everything new that there is to offer.
There are new prizes. There are also mystery gifts. Now, I won’t muddy the waters and explain them here because they have their own respected links, so click and learn. Also, remember that every bracket created is an entry into a Random Prize Draw. I say this multiple other times on the site, but want to reiterate here. Literal free money is to be had by participating. Well maybe not entirely free, because there is a cost per bracket, but there is the chance that by just participating you could win more money than it cost you to be here.
I did it, I reached out to Vancouver/non-Vancouver brands to get sponsorships and right now they are pending but when (if) they get back to me the prize list will be updated with featured brands and this will also be communicated.
Filling out the bracket is actually one of the easier things you can do. I mean, there is an autofill button that takes all the guesswork out of bracket making and instead allows you to focus that extra 4 minutes on accomplishing a simple task you’ve been putting off for months. The hardest part is actually remembering your login info and then deciding to go ahead and fill it out.
I have nothing more on this page. I think I did a decent enough job staying on topic and not ranting and raving or more formally known as, Contact 2026ing.