2016 NCAA Conference Tournament Pool!

Welcome to appetizer week kiddies!  I know we're all waiting for the 32 oz porterhouse next week, but let's wet the appetite a little with the fifth (I think) annual Conference Tournament Pick 'Em!

First, remind me of all the links and stuff I need.  I’m going to ask about it, so just put it up here.

Good call.  Here’s a quick reference for all the links you should need:

• Buy-in: $20/entry
• Entry Form – Embedded at the bottom.  You're welcome.
• Website: tourneypools.blogspot.com – the leaderboard and all updates will be posted here.  If you have a question where ANYTHING is, go here before asking, b/c odds are it’s here.
• Email: tourneypools@gmail.com – I’m constantly monitoring this and can get back to you fairly quickly.
• Paypal ID: tourneypools@gmail.com – yep, finally linked ‘em all up.  BRANDING!
• Venmo ID: tourneypools@gmail.com - notice a pattern here?
• Tournament Bracket Links:
• A-10 
• AAC 
• ACC 
• Big Ten 
• Big 12 
• Big East 
• Pac-12 
• SEC 
  

Wait wait wait, before you start into your convoluted rules, did you change anything?  I played this stupid game last year, so just give me the changes so I can get on with my day!


No referral pools anymore.  It's annoying to track and the prize pool pretty much brings people in on its own at this point.  And, as usual...

Do not email, text, call, direct message, or facebook message me picks.  I will ignore them.

The Rules

• Participants each pick one team from each of the 8 conference tournaments specified below.  Who you can pick will be based on seed in the tournament.  Participants can pick only one 1 seed, 1 2 seed, 1 3 seed, 1… you get the idea.  Here’s the conference tourneys we will be choosing from:
• A-10 (which has 14 teams now – how does this conference keep growing?)
• AAC (Lacking the best team in the conference this year)
• ACC (Lacking the best team in the conference this year... DAMN YOU KATINA POWELL!!!)
• Big Ten (which also has 14 teams – in conference logic, 10=14)
• Big 12 (which has 10 teams; counting is hard)
• Big East (Where X is gonna give it to you)
• Pac-12 (The only conference that knows how to count for the third or fourth year running)
• SEC (Mid-major wildcard as per usual)
• You may replace a better seeded team w/ a worse seeded team in your 8 team entry if you so choose.  For example, if you do not like any 3 seeds in any conference tournament, you can replace your “3 seed” slot with any other team seeded 4 or higher.  Likewise, this also means that teams higher than an 8 seed are eligible to be used in any slots.
• Scoring will be as follows:
• Championship win – 4 points
• Semifinal win – 3 points
• Quarterfinal win – 2 points
• “Quarterquarterfinal”? win – 1 point
• This scoring means that only four games maximum will be counted.  Teams playing in a fifth game will not have those wins counted.

Entry Fees & Payouts

• Buy-in price is $20
• Multiple entries are allowed
• Pool will be paid out 100%.  The only way the moderators make money is if we are smart enough to beat you fools down. Which happened last year.  Win your pride back dammit!
• The number of places to be paid out and the allocation of the prize pool in those paid out places will be determined by the moderators once numbers are final and published before the end of the first day of the contest.
• In the event of a tie, participants will split any winnings evenly.  I know I’m famous for my obtrusive tiebreaker rules – I’m taking the lazy way out until someone complains and I fix it next year.

Deadlines

• All entries & $$$ must be submitted by Wednesday, March 9th, 2016 at 6 PM EDT – There are a handful of games before that, so if you want those games counted, get your entry in!  Here's the games that you could miss out on getting a point in...
• Pitt vs Syracuse
• Duke vs NC ST/Wake
• Washington/Stanford
• Colorado/Washington St.

• $$$ can be sent in one of two ways
• You hand it to a moderator in cash or check form
• Send it via paypal/venmo to the account listed above – this is by far the easiest method for all involved.  If you don’t have a paypal account, sign up for one.  I set up an experiment where I asked a dimwitted chimpanzee to sign up for a paypal account, and it took the chimp 2 minutes and 28 seconds.  I bet you can easily finish under 3 minutes.  Or are you dumber than a dimwitted chimpanzee?  I don’t know, I guess it’s possible.
• No IOU’s will be accepted.  This isn’t a charity.  Maybe when UNICEF gets into the tournament pool business, you can go there and give them your IOU.  Until then, we’re the guys to talk to.

Congrats on making it to the end!  Your prize?  An entry form!