Brackets

Harold Lounge Braggin’ Rights Bracket Contest Advice

Just in case you are a living defiance of the opinions of some and immune to the solipsist fallacy (“I do not care, therefore NO one cares”) and are interested in having more than a common person’s interest in the quite probably exploitative and morally questionable national collegiate basketball tournament (perhaps you’d like a chance to beat the President like we ALL did last year) or maybe you’re looking forward to your handsome, frameworthy, certificate of victory (Sabino, I just remembered that I still owe you yours for your victory last year…and the socks–sorry!), but amn’t quite sure how to go about making your choices because you haven’t had any time to follow the college cagers this winter (owing to the spectacular weather), fret not. There’s help on the way.

First a clarification–the Realist’s post implied that the tournament had started already; not so! The play in rounds were last night, but those don’t really count. The first round games start at 11a on Thursday, so you have until then to fill out your bracket. Two steps are required. First, if you don’t already have one, you need to register for an account with cbssports.com–click on “Register” on the right side; it just requires an email address and you make your own password. Once you’ve done that, click here or do a search for “Harold Lounge” on the CBS site and enter “hl2012” as your password. Fill out your bracket and let the smack talking begin.

Who should you pick? Ah, an entirely different question. Here are some options for picking:

~Slate’s bracket help provides the chance to pick by colors and mascots only.

~The Wall Street Journal provides a blind picker with nothing but information about the team’s play this year, so you are not biased by reputation or other irrelevant factors, then when you’re done it shows you all of your picks.

~Slate also has some advice about how a hedge fund manager would pick.

~Or maybe you’d like to take a stand on principle and pick according to the schools’ academic stats using Inside Higher Ed’s analysis. It’s all good.

Make your picks and take your shot at the title and at joining the list of Champions!

2007 Champion: Jennifer Armendarez

2008 Champion: Jennifer Armendarez

2009 Champion: Someone

2010 Champion: Dave Richardson

2011 Champion: Chris Sabino

h/t to Realist for setting up the Bracket this year; thanks!

Three Suggestions for Bracket Help (Contest Reminder)

Just in case you’re looking for some help to prepare your bracket for the Harold Lounge Braggin Rights Bracket Contest, I’ve decided to offer up a little:

The Wall Street Journal’s Blind Brackets: This tool takes away the team names and replaces them with code words so you can’t pick by reputation or familiarity and keeps the info you need to evaluate the team’s chances.

Slate’s Team Colors or Mascot Brackets: These allow you to make your picks by either team colors or mascots. I hope the winner is someone who has used one of these.

They were collected and discussed on a post

2nd Annual Braggin Rights Bracket Competion

That’s right–it’s time to show off that hard won college basketball knowledge and/or passion for prognostication and/or propensity toward blind luck: in the spirit of community building, cultural appreciation, and cabin fever, The Harold Lounge presents the Second Annual Braggin Rights Bracket Competition!

As I noted last year, the first two versions of this contest were won by early favorite Jenny Armendarez, but she didn’t compete last year, and so my victory was hollow. To be the champ, you’ve got to beat the champ.

Anyway, the details remain the same:

It is free to enter and so does not constitute gambling (no ethics policy violation!). You don’t even have to know anything about basketball to win (at least in theory). All you have to do is go HERE, sign in (or register a new account if you’re new to this–providing them with an email and a password), and then you’ll be prompted to enter a password which is “CCC”. Then just fill out your bracket and start talking smack!

Check out the rules while you’re there, too. This year’s competition will feature the victory plus seed formula, so if you pick a 12 seed to win in the first round, and they do, you’ll get 13 points (1 + the seed number). This provides some incentive to pick some long shots.

The winner will, as in years past, get a handsome certificate awarding one year’s worth of bragging rights and a ‘Major’ prize (value <$7.99). Past prizes have included a pair of socks, white board markers, and an old bag of candy from my desk.

So get picking, people! Be sure to have your bracket finished before 11am on Thursday. Once the games start, the competition is closed…

 

Braggin’ Rights Bracket Competition

That’s right–in the spirit of community building, cultural appreciation, and cabin fever, The Harold Lounge is proud to announce the first annual Braggin’ Rights Bracket Competition (third really, but the first two were really pretty small–both won by the early favorite Jennifer Armendarez (Speech)).

It is free to enter and so does not constitute gambling (no ethics policy violation!). You don’t even have to know anything about basketball to win (at least in theory). All you have to do is go here, sign in (or register a new account if you’re new to this–providing them with an email and a password), and then you’ll be prompted to enter a password which is “CCC”. Then just fill out your bracket and start talking smack!

Check out the rules while you’re there, too. This year’s competition will feature the victory plus seed formula, so if you pick a 12 seed to win in the first round, and they do, you’ll get 13 points (1 + the seed number). This provides some incentive to pick some long shots.

The winner will, as in years past, get a handsome certificate awarding one year’s worth of bragging rights and a ‘Major’ prize (value <$7.99). Past prizes have included a pair of socks, white board markers, and an old bag of candy from my desk.

So get picking, people! Be sure to have your bracket finished before 11am on Thursday. Once the games start, the competition is closed…