Contest: March Radness III

You like basketball, don't you? No? Well, this is the time of the year where you pretend you do, in order to wax philosophic about Ohio State's lack of depth or quiz your buddy about whether or not there really is a University of Texas at San Antonio (there is!) My goal with this year's contest is to simply get more participants than last year. We grew from 8 brackets in the first year to 17 last year, so I think this goal is attainable without starting up a Twitter campaign.

Once again, one of the requirements is having a Yahoo account. If you absolutely, positively refuse to sign up for one of those things, go ahead and send me your bracket before the deadline in some sort of legible form and I'll send you a prize if you manage to pick a lot of winners.

Yahoo's default scoring rules apply. Play-in games do not count because they are incredibly stupid. Should you choose one of the play-in winners to advance in the real part of the tournament, not only do you do so at your own peril but you also have the advantage of showing success no matter which play-in team makes it in. Please, please, PLEASE make sure you fill out the entire bracket, including the tie-breaking final score of the final game. I hate to disqualify people for not filling everything out, but it always seems to happen.

What's the incentive here? Other than bragging rights, winners of 1st, 2nd, 3rd and Worst Place will receive prizes in a similar manner as the college bowl pick'em contest that I held a couple of months ago. The prize pool will include a 2011 Topps Heritage blaster, a cheap wax party, some relics and junk... the usual deal. (If you're still waiting on your prize package from my last contest, you will get your big box o' stuff before the week is out.)

If you participated last year, you should have already received an email at the address attached to your Yahoo account. New signups should click here (password = marchradness). The deadline is the morning prior to the first real (non play-in) tournament game on Thursday, though I would suggest getting your bracket done the night before just to be safe. Leave a comment here or send me an email if the invite link doesn't work or if you are otherwise having trouble joining up so I can send you a direct invitation.