Consumer News

Your Basketball Savvy May Win Thousands In Online Contest

Posted: 3/31/2011

Last year, Buttons the guinea pig guessed the college basketball championship winner. This year, the top picker may be you.

(NAPSI)- Few things are as challenging as picking winners in the NCAA tournament. In fact, of the thousands of people to submit an online bracket in Yahoo! Sports’ free Tourney Pick’Em game last year, none did better than a guinea pig named Buttons.

It’s true.

The rodent’s improbable selections, which included a perfect West Region and Duke beating Butler in the championship game, earned her owner the $10,000 grand prize and proved you don’t need to know college basketball to cash in on the tournament.

“That’s what’s great about college basketball,” said Angela Sun, who will be providing daily updates on the tournament on the Yahoo! Sports Minute. “Anyone—from the die-hard fan to the office mate picking games at random—can end up a winner.”

So before you study box scores or seek expert opinions, consider some of these creative ways to fill out your bracket and perhaps win some money to pay those postholiday bills:

Academic reputation: Consult the latest university rankings and choose the team in each pairing whose school has the better overall academic standing. Just don’t be surprised if your Final Four includes a team from the Ivy League.

Mascot fight: Have you ever wondered who would win if a Badger fought a Blue Devil? Perhaps not, but that’s beside the point. Use your imagination. Then, pick the mascot in each pairing you think would prevail.

Party-school rankings: Rowdy student sections are part of what makes college basketball so much fun. Grab the latest party-school rankings and pick the team in each pairing whose students best know how to have a good time (responsibly, of course).

School colors: We’ve all known somebody who roots for teams based on uniforms. Channel that person. Then, choose each pairing based on which color combination you think looks best. Warning: Three of last year’s four No. 1 seeds had some combination of blue and white.

Coin flip: Surrender your bracket to chance. Flip a coin to determine each game. Hey, at least you’ll have a 50-50 chance in the first round.

Height: Test a tall theory. Pull rosters and rank teams by cumulative height. Then, pick the tallest team in each pairing. Hint: Last year’s champion, Duke, stretched 91 feet, 5 inches.

Of course, you can always resort to more traditional methods. Whatever you decide, have fun. Yahoo! Sports makes it easy to fill out your bracket. Simply visit tournament.fantasysports.yahoo.com/t1 and sign up for the free Tourney Pick’Em game to get started; you’ll automatically be entered to win the grand prize.

Who knows? You might even beat Buttons.

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