2026 NCAA Division 1 Basketball Pool Rules
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Pick 10 teams and assign a ranking of 10 to 1 (10 being the highest).
Every time one of your teams win, you receive the # of points allotted to that team.
You can pick a team only ONCE per entry. ASSUMING you made the following picks:
10: Dayton 9: Gonzaga 8: Vanderbilt 7: Yale 6: Delaware
5: Georgia 4: Georgetown 3: Loyola Chicago 2: Michigan St 1: Connecticut
you would receive 10 points for every game Dayton won, 9 points for every game Gonzaga won, down to 1 point for every game Connecticut won.
Remember, THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE! If you have played in this pool before, you know these example picks are not necessarily perfect though they are often informative. But since some of these teams might not make it into the tournament (I know that's hard to believe but that selection committee can be fickle), I would suggest that you wait until the selections are announced on March 15th before making your picks to ensure your teams are actually in the tournament.
Winners are determined by the TOTAL # of points for the ENTIRE tournament.
As in other years, the determination of the # of places receiving prize money will be made based upon the total # entries received
Payoffs will be similar to previous years and will be stated in the Initial Composite.
NOTE: As a change this year, all updates and other files (Opening/Closing Notes ...) will be available by going to the "Composites" link on this web site. From there, you can then download the appropriate file to your computer. As usual, updated standings will be available after each round. If you just want to see the latest standings without downloading a file, you can do that by clicking on "Current Standings" on the Composites link. I will Not be emailing the results out to anyone, though I might send emails out to let you know when I have made updates to the site. You can expect the Initial Composite and Opening Notes to be available early Thursday evening of first round. Update composites should be available shortly after the last game of that full round. You can tell that an update is available when the link appears as "blue underlined" text next to the appropriate file.
Entries may be submitted by:
1) Go to the "Entry Form" link, fill out the appropriate fields, and then click "Submit".
That will automatically send me an email with your picks.
(You will see a confirmation page with your picks on it which you can then print for your records)
This is the recommended method to submit your entries as it also assures me of getting a standard email format.
2) Any other method, such as mail or email (except via phone calls), as long as you clearly mark the teams
from 10 to 1. If you will be emailing them, send them to tomheidt @ outlook.com (eliminate the spaces).
Please do NOT call me with your picks - it's too time consuming to write down your picks and also leaves me
with no formal documentation of them.
Note1: If you pick a team more than once and the situation is unable to be corrected before the tournament starts, you will automatically be given 0 points for any additional picks of that team. Using the online form eliminates that possibility.
Note2: You may pick the winner of any of the 4 play-in games as a single entry. However, no points are awarded for those March 17-18th games. You would get points for that winning team once Thursday play begins. For example, if you see Duke and Michigan in a special pre-tournament #16 seed game, besides the fact that you might want to verify you're looking at the right sport, you could select Duke-Michigan from the online dropdown list as one of your picks. You would get whoever wins that game for future games (but no points would be awarded for the pre-game).
As always, the fee is $5 per entry form. Multiple entries per person are allowed, and even encouraged.
I accept Cash, Checks, Venmo (Thomas-Heidt-1), or PayPal (tomheidt @ outlook.com). Sorry, no Bitcoin!
Checks can be mailed to me at 20 Nymark Drive Rochester, NY 14626.
SPECIAL PayPal Note: If your money comes from a PayPal balance or bank account, there is NO additional fee.
However, if your PayPal payment is coming from a Debit or Credit Card, then you must add the PayPal fee of $.30 + 2.9% to your entry payment.
Thus, the totals for typical transactions would be: 1 entry = $5.45, 2 entries = $10.59, 3 entries = $15.74, 4 entries = $20.88, 5 entries = $26.03, 10 entries = $51.75 etc...
The only money I ever make in this pool is if I finish in a paying position (rarely) but I don't want to lose money just for running the pool so I needed to make those PayPal entry fee adjustments.
ALL ENTRY FEES RECEIVED ARE PAID OUT IN PRIZE MONEY.
ALL Picks must be in by Tipoff of the first game on Thursday, March 19th (typically 12:15).
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