Contests

NCAA Tournament 2012: How To Pick the National Champion

Jon Teitel — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 04:19:24 -0400

CollegeHoops.net's Bracket Tactics will help you pick this year's national champion & finish at the top of your NCAA Bracket pool. These 8 tips are based on previous NCAA Tournament results. At the end, we will use the 8 tips to help narrow down your projected champion to a few odds-on favorites:

TIP #1: No team that lost its conference tournament opening game has never gone on to win the NCAA title the same year.

STRATEGY: The extra few days of rest have not proven helpful.

MEANING: Avoid Marquette, Kansas St, and Iowa St before penciling them is as your champ.

TIP #2: All but 4 champs since 1985 have averaged 77+ PPG.

STRATEGY: Stellar offense usually leads the way (last year being an exception.)

MEANING: Consider North Carolina, Missouri, Duke, and Creighton. Be wary of Michigan St, Louisville, Michigan, Georgetown, and Wisconsin.

TIP #3: All but 1 champ since 2006 won their conference tournament before winning the national title.

STRATEGY: There is something to be said for late season momentum.

MEANING: Avoid Syracuse, Kansas, Duke, UNLV, Indiana, Wisconsin to win it all.

TIP #4: Since 1979, the only national champion without a McDonald's All-American on the roster was Maryland in 2002.

STRATEGY: Talent rises to the top in national tournaments.

MEANING: Avoid Cincinnati, Murray St, San Diego St to win it all.

TIP #5: Since UNLV won the title in 1990, each of the past 21 champs has been from a power-conference: ACC (8), SEC (5), Big East (4), Pac-12 (2), Big 12 (1), Big 10 (1).

STRATEGY: You might want to think twice before picking a mid-major team to win it all

MEANING: Avoid Creighton, Memphis, Murray St, New Mexico, San Diego St, Temple, UNLV

TIP #6: The last champ with only 1 loss was Texas Western in 1966, and the last 2 teams entering the NCAA tournament with only 1 loss ended up losing in the title game (2005 IL & 2008 Memphis).

STRATEGY: The pressure of winning so many teams in a row can wear on teams.

MEANING: Kentucky might make the title game, but might not win it all.

TIP #7: Only 2 coaches with 0 to 4 prior tournament appearances have won the title since 1985. (Izzo & Fisher)

STRATEGY: Focus on teams with veteran coaches to win it all.

MEANING: Avoid Baylor (Scott Drew: 2 prior appearances), Marquette (Buzz Williams: 3rd appearance), Murray St (Steve Prohm: 1st appearance), and Virginia (Tony Bennett: 2 prior appearances)

TIP #8: Each champ since 2002 has had a Top 75 strength of schedule.

STRATEGY: Stay away from teams that played soft schedules. You have to play the best to know how to beat the best.

MEANING: Avoid Missouri (SOS 86), Creighton (SOS 102), Gonzaga (SOS 78), Saint Mary's (SOS 104) and Murray St (SOS 157)

IN SUMMARY

The team with the most strikes against it is Murray St. Other teams to seriously avoid winning it all include Creighton, Marquette, San Diego St, and Wisconsin. Despite high seeds, be wary of picking Syracuse, Kansas, Michigan St, and Baylor to go all the way. Duke and Missouri have pros and cons, while Kentucky has a better shot. North Carolina and Ohio St might be the best choices.

2012 Free Bracket Contests

Shawn Siegel — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 19:00:16 -0500

Low on cash? Need a little economic stimulus? Think you know college basketball? Then NCAA Tournament bracket contests are for you. There are contests of all shapes and sizes. Free ones. Expensive ones. Hard to win massive prizes. Easier to win smaller prizes. And then contests that you can set up yourself.

Here are 16 NCAA Tournament bracket games, pools, and contests to keep you busy during March Madness:

Free 2012 Bracket Contests

CollegeHoops.net Bracket Contest - Our yearly contest, with some cool features and prizes provided by RetroCollegeCuts.com. Print out our 2012 brackets to help you make your picks.

Yahoo: NCAA Tournament Pickem - Can't go wrong with any of Yahoo's fantasy offerings. $10,000 for the best bracket. Good for running your own pool. They also have a Women's Pickem contest.

ESPN's Tournament Challenge - Prove yourself amongst the thousands, win a $10,000 Best Buy gift card. Create your own group.

CBS

Bracket Challenge - Similar to ESPN. Bonus that you can watch MMOD while following your bracket. Win trips to the 2013 Final Four. Also on Facebook.

Round By Round Brackets - A good alternative for those who don't want to be eliminated by the first weekend. Partnership with CoachesVsCancer.

BracketManager - Run your pool amongst friends. Beware all the AT&T ads.

FoxSports Bracket Challenge - Win a $1 million with a perfect bracket. More realistically, win a TV or some smaller gift cards.

BracketContest.com - No clue about this site, but it ranks high on Google, and it looks like they legitimately give out cash.

NBCSports: It's Madness - Win a $2,000 or gift cards from TicketCity. Easy to join.

Sporting News Bracket Insanity - Hosted on Facebook. Win some smart phones.

USA Today's March Mania - More of the same here.

Athlon Sports Bracket Breakdown - Win some JVC products, gift cards, and $60k for getting 60 picks right.

+2012 NCAA Tournament

• Basketball Tournament Coverage

• Bracketology

• NCAA Bracket 2012

• Bracket Contest

• 2012 Tournament Schedule

CHN's Bracket Contest

Sure Shot

CHN — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:42:15 -0400

And to think, winning the Slam Dunk Contest is probably only the second-biggest highlight of Nate Robinson’s season. Clearly, the first is his burgeoning friendship with Will Ferrell. What do you think of these two giving dap during games? (Note that is not Ed. sitting in the expensive seats.) Whoever writes the funniest caption will win a dope prize from our vault and see their name in Trash Talk next issue.

What’s My Name?

CHN — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:31:18 -0400

CB4? That’s not a nickname—that’s a Chris Rock movie. RuPaul? You know we love Shaq, but come on, that was foul and uncalled for. No, Chris Bosh needs a real nickname. Obviously it’s been a terrible season in Toronto, but we’re confused as to why it’s Chris’ fault. We’d like to aim our questions at one Bryan Colangelo, for starters. Anyway, Chris Bosh. Olympian. All-Star. Player in need of a good nickname.
Whoever has the best nickname will win a dope prize from the SLAM vault and get their name in Trash Talk next month.

NBA Breakdown Contest, Pt 3

CHN — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:37:12 -0400

Slamonline proudly presents the third and final SLAM/NBA Breakdown Trivia Challenge (Pt 2 was detailed here, and won by Albert of New York, who reports that he loved his prize). All you have to do to win is check out the April trivia question here on the contest page and then listen to the entertaining NBA Breakdown show on internet radio to win a great SLAM prize pack.
Hosts Dave Mendonca and Audley Stephenson will reward the first caller with the correct answer.
Here’s Dave and Audley’s question for April:
“Besides Kevin Garnett, Darius Miles and Eddy Curry, who is the fourth Illinois Mr. Basketball to go straight to the NBA from high school?”
Tune into The NBA Breakdown at 9pm Eastern on Sunday, April 12th to call-in your answer for your chance to win!
SLAM Editor-in-Chief Ben Osborne will be on the show that night to share his insights on the magazine and latest happenings in the League. For more from Dave and Audley, check out their blog here.
Comments are off so no one puts the right answer here…save it for April 12th!

DWade shoe giveaway!!!

CHN — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:04:51 -0400

by Ben Osborne
SLAM 127 is on sale everywhere (in the US at least) by now and subscription copies have gone out too…time for a-a reminder to those of you who do not have it to go get it! and b-a dope contest related to the issue.
As always, our friends at Converse (what up Paul!) have come up big in an effort to deliver DWade goodies to his real fans. Check out all that we have in store for deserving readers…
-Two signed Wade 3 shoes (right foot only; pictured below the cover). As you can see in the image, it’s got a really nice silver signature on one of Dwyane’s great shoes.
-10 pairs of Wade Slashes (any size, any of the three colorways shown in this post). As in, whoever wins will get to tell me their size and what colorway they want and Converse will send us a pair specifically for the winners.
How do you win? I wish I could make sure only owners of the issue entered, but we don’t get down like that. Technically this is a “no-purchase-necessary” giveaway (like always) and anyone on here can win. So here’s what I came up with…to me, while Kobe and LeBron have been typically amazing (don’t want to sound like I’m taking their greatness for granted, but in a way you could say their seasons were expected), Dwyane has been the individual story of the season. I’m not ashamed at all to say I didn’t see it coming. Yes, I know what he did in the Finals. Yes, I saw the gold-medal game. Yes, I stated vehemently that the Heat would win 45 games (in Eboy’s preview, in some Lang comments, and in NOYZ all season; shoot, Lang and I have a bet on it). Shit, I wrote one fo the first national features on Dwyane before he left Marquette, so it’s not like he hasn’t been on my radar for a long time. But still…30-5-8-2-1? At 6-4? After two straight severely shortened seasons? Leading a young, short, mediocre team to the brink of home-court advantage in the first-round of the Playoffs? Remarkable. Given all that, my question is: When did YOU see Dwyane in his current light, which is Top Three Current Players and a MVP candidate, if not favorite? At Robbins High? Marquette? Rookie year? The Finals? If you’re like me, the true answer might be like March 9 of this year! If you really saw it coming a long time ago, cool. But I’m not necassarily going to give the prizes to those who can claim the longest lead time on seeing DWade turn out like this. As always, I’m looking for creativity, passion and good reasoning.
That’s it. Just do your thing in the comment section by explaining when you knew Dwyane could be this good. In my opinion, the two signed shoes are the cooler of the prize options, so they’ll go to places 1 and 2. Places 3-12 will win their own pair of Wade Slashes (from top, the colors are black-silver, white-black-red, and white-blue).
We’ll let this percolate this week and then pick winners Friday.
Thanks for playing!

A KG Giveaway To Take You Into The Madness

CHN — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:30:45 -0400

by Chris O’Leary
With March Madness looming, adidas has gone an interesting route on their college campaign this year. The stripes took four of their players who went to the NBA straight out of high school (Kevin Garnett, Dwight Howard, Tracy McGrady and Josh Smith) and had them each do something with a different NCAA program.
You can check out the videos below and wonder about what might have been, like KG playing at UCLA, T-Mac (who’s looking out of shape in the ad) with Louisville, Dwight Howard at Kansas or Josh Smith at Pitt.
Adidas is also breaking out a new shoe for March Madness, called the Mad Clima. Quickly, some specs on the shoe from adidas:
• ClimaCool upper and midsole for 360 degree cooling and ventilation
• Inserted mesh lining provides enhanced breathability
• Custom colors and logo styles for UCLA, Kansas, Louisville
• Additional non-logo Mad Clima footwear available in multiple colors
• Full patent uppers
In addition to the sneakers, team related product is hitting stores as well in replica jerseys and t-shirts. You can also pick all of this stuff up at adi’s online store.
Finally, the giveaway. We’ve got a UCLA package for you, with shoes and a jersey signed by Kevin Garnett. Since adidas is big on the brotherhood angle, I want to hear about your all-time favorite brotherhood moment from the NCAA tourney. Leave your answers in the comments below, and we’ll leave it open through the weekend, with the post closing at midnight, Eastern time Sunday night (or Monday morning, technically).
Enjoy the vids.