Welcome!
Welcome to the home page of the 2024 NCAA Tournament Contest, organized by David Williams for the entertainment of his friends and colleagues. If you are one of those people, then you can use this site to submit your entry into this year's contest. I reserve the right to refuse any entry for any reason, in order to keep our little game among friends, so to speak.
How does the contest work?
Starting with the field of 64 teams, each player predicts which team will win each of the 63 games of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament. You must choose a winner for every game of every round -- your "picks." You then submit those picks via this web site, along with a prediction of the score of the championship game (for tie-breaking purposes), your name, and your e-mail address.
As the tournament progresses, you will receive daily e-mail reports of the standings in the contest, showing how you are doing with respect to the other players.
When the National Champion has been crowned, then the top three finishers in our contest will receive the usual fare of fabulous prizes that this contest is famous for awarding.
Sixty-Eight Is Not a Power of Two
Since 2011, the NCAA has selected 68 teams for the tournament, with eight of them playing in the "First Four" on the Tuesday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday. Our contest, however, does not factor in those games, and we begin with the field of 64 that begins play on Thursday, which the NCAA is now calling the "First Round" again.
Scoring
The contest uses the following scoring method: Each round of the tournament is worth 32 points. In the first round (32 games), each game is worth one point. In the second round (16 games), each game is worth two points, and so on, so that the final game is worth 32 points. There are six rounds, making the maximum possible score 192 points. If a team you have picked to win a game loses, you lose the points for that game, as well as the points for all the future games that you had picked that team to win.
How do I enter?
Following the instructions in your invitation e-mail, visit the Signup section of the web site to create your account. You will be sent a confirmation e-mail with a link you must click on to activate your account. Then you can use your new account to login, and start picking your teams. Don't forget to include a prediction of the score of the championship game. Be sure to press the Save button when you have completed your picks.
Note that there is limited error checking of your entry. Make sure you have picked winners for all the games, and have completed all the text fields, before submitting your entry. Incomplete entries will not be accepted.
If you want to, after you have saved your picks, you can make changes to them, up to the start of the tournament on March 21st. Simply return to the My Picks page, login to your account, and make your changes. Be sure to press Save to keep whatever changes you have made.
If you have any questions or problems, e-mail me at drw@davidrwilliams.com.
All entries must be submitted in final form no later than the start of the first game (approximately 12:15pm EDT) on Thursday, March 21st.
Good luck, and may the most powerful prognosticator prevail!