March Madness

Welcome to my NCAA Basketball Bracket Pool!

A brief reminder: Get your bracket(s) in before the pick deadline and make sure to review the pool settings. Only the main 64 teams that make up a standard bracket are included (i.e. the play-in games, or 'first four', are NOT included). Good luck to everyone. If you have any questions, please contact me at nate@chipcollector.com.

- Nate Pincus

• Members pick all 63 games of the NCAA Tournament.
• The pick deadline is set to March 19, 2026 at 12:15 PM ET.
• There are no restrictions on how many entries a member can have in the contest.
• Points are awarded for each correct pick.
• Points values increase as the tournament progresses, as follows:
• Play-in games are not included or scored
• First Round = 1 point
• Second Round = 2 points
• Sweet 16 = 4 points
• Regional Final (Round of 8) = 8 points
• National Semifinal (Last Four) = 16 points
• Championship = 32 points
• The contest uses a seed point multiplier bonus. The round points will be multiplied by the seed of a correct winning team. For example, if a 5 seed is picked and wins a Sweet 16 game, they will receive 20 points for that pick (4 x 5).
• There is no tie-breaker active for this contest.
• The winner is the entry with the most points at the end of the NCAA Tournament.

Additional Rules (These are custom rules added by your pool commissioner that are above and beyond the website rules.)

• "The Tournament" refers to the 2026 Men's Division I NCAA Basketball Championship which begins on Thursday, March 19 with 64 teams, is single elimination with 6 rounds and 63 games and ends with the Championship game on Monday, April 6. The play-in games played prior to March 19 will not be included in this pool.
• This pool is being run on www.splashsports.com ("website") with a Contest ID of 664940. You will be able to access the picks and standings online simply by logging in with your personal username and password. The pool manager is provided with administrative tools that allow him to change the pool name, password and settings. The manager can also boot you out of the pool or make you inactive, in which case you won't be able to access the picks and standings.
• The website allows the pool manager to hide/unhide picks, set the pick deadline, define scoring system, and make other changes to the settings. The pool manager can also modify these text rules.
• The objective of the pool is to earn as many points as possible. The person with the most points at the end of the tournament wins the pool. There are prizes for the top eight finishers.
• You earn points by correctly predicting the straight up winners of each tournament game. There are 6 rounds and a total of 63 games, 32 games in the first round, 16 games in the second round, etc. The pool manager has set the point values per win as stated above.
• This pool uses seed scoring and you get the points shown above times the team seed for each win. For example, if you picked a #5 seeded team to win in the 4th round, you would get 40 points (8 pts/win * 5 seed = 40). If you choose a #1 seed team to win the same game, you would get 8 points (8 pts/win * 1 seed = 8).
• The pool manager has set the deadline for Thursday, March 19 prior to the start of the first game. You may enter and change your picks until this time. The pool manager may change this deadline but no entries will be accepted once games start.
• Standings for this pool are based on points. Players with the most points are ranked highest. Standings will be updated on the website automatically as the tournament progresses.
• There is no tiebreaker. In the event of a tie the prize will be split equally among all those who tie. This rule applies to all prize positions.
• It is your responsibility to ensure that your picks were properly accepted by the website. You can do this by requesting a pick confirmation email or by returning to the picksheet to see your picks prefilled on the form. If there is a dispute between what you think you picked and what the website shows, we will go by what is on the website.