Join The UtterlyBoring.com NCAA Tournament Pick ’em (2008 Edition)

Selection Sunday is coming up on March 16 and then it’s time for offices all over the country to create office pools for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. And it’s time for the readers of this site to compete for bragging rights (and a few cool prizes) in the annual UtterlyBoring.com Tournament Pick ‘Em. Last years contest info was here with final results here with Scott’s Mad Dribblerz taking the top prizes.

Sign Up Info: While the field for the tournament hasn’t been set yet, you can still get signed up in the group and be notified when the field has been set and you can start making your picks (usually about an hour or so after the picks have been announced). Sign up here or if that link doesn’t work, go here, click on the “Join Group” link and use the following info:

Group ID#: 450

Password: utterlyboring

The group’s page is here, which I think you can only see if you sign up.

Prizes: First off, here are the prizes we have so far (and if any local business or individual wants to throw a prize into the pot — for first or last or anywhere in between — contact me and you’ll receive credit and a link here, if you’d like):

• First Place: Meals for two (breakfast, lunch, or dinner, as it’s all served all day), plus a copy of a couple books: Worst Case Scenario Survival Handbook and John Daly’s My Life In And Out of The Rough (The Truth Behind the Bull**** You Think You Know About Me) from Lyle at Jake’s Diner here in Bend. Plus (added on 3/20): A XXXL (that’s extra-extra-extra-large) lightweight University of Oregon jacket, made by Nike. It’s a couple different shades of green with yellow trim. It’s got a small Oregon “O” and Nike swoosh on the front and it says “Oregon” across the back. It’s a nice little jacket, I think it’s used, but looks brand new, but it’s frickin’ huge — like tent huge. Thanks to Larry at Discover Sunriver for that.
• Second Place: A baseball cap, stickers, and a women’s fitted t-shirt (size large) from Paizano’s Pizza over in Baker City (plus a free Large Specialty Pizza if you live within driving distance).
• Last Place (Yes, you read that right, see below for rules): You get a t-shirt from the UtterlyBoring.com shop that you can show off to all your friends your inability to pick winners. Wear it with pride.

Rules:

• Only one bracket per-person this year. While there are 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 ways a bracket could be broken down, since we have a dead-last prize this year, it wouldn’t be fair to allow more than a bracket-per-person.
• The entire bracket must be filled out if you want to be eligible for the last-place prize.
• Prizes: Unless otherwise stated, prizes must be picked up from prize providers in person, and prize providers are not eligible to win the prizes they provide (and I’m taking myself out of the running for any and all of the prizes, if I win/lose). Prizes may be added anytime during the tournament, so be sure to sign up.
• Scoring: Since I agree with Scott, Yahoo! puts far too much points into the final rounds, so we’re customizing the default scoring a bit, using some of the numbers from the Fibonacci Sequence. So this is how Yahoo! scored it last year:
  • Round 1: 1 pt
  • Round 2: 2 pts
  • Round 3: 4 pts
  • Round 4: 8 pts
  • Round 5: 16 pts
  • Championship: 32 pts

  …we’re going to do it this way this year:

  • Round 1: 1 pt
  • Round 2: 2 pts
  • Round 3: 3 pts
  • Round 4: 5 pts
  • Round 5: 8 pts
  • Championship: 13 pts

  That should make for a tighter race this year.

• These rules are subject to change, I’m the final say on everything, UtterlyBoring.com cannot and will not be held liable for anything, nor can Yahoo Sports, prize providers, my family, hamster or anybody else. Do not taunt happy fun ball. Batteries not included. Not for off-road use. May cause oily discharge. This is casual fun, folks — let’s keep it that way.

That’s all for now, so get yourself signed up and good luck!