March Madness: EXPANDED

This year, the NCAA expanded the Big Dance to include 68 teams, so it only seems right that we also expand our coverage of one of our favorite sporting events of the year!

We hope you're as excited about the NCAA basketball tournament as we are!

Make your picks!
Join us in a friendly competition to see how well you can pick your brackets. Ec team members and readers will be participating, and we can't wait to see who you pick to win it all! Earn the bragging rights (and more!) by joining us at http://ec2011bracket.mayhem.cbssports.com/e and using the password MarchMadness. If you need our group name, it's: ec magazine 2011 bracket challenge.

View the Izzone

In the March 2011 issue of ec, we highlighted the Izzone, the student cheering section for the Michigan State's basketball team. Check out this video to learn more and see the Izzone in action:

You can also link to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4O_4k-2kQY

Silent Night
Taylor University, a small liberal arts Christian school in Upland, Ind., won’t play in this year’s Division I NCAA tournament, but the NAIA school has its own special tradition. On the Friday before the fall finals week begins (usually around the middle of December) fans come to the game dressed in their pajamas and stay completely silent until Taylor’s team scores its tenth point. Then, the crowd goes crazy, complete with celebrating and confetti. The game is known as Taylor’s “Silent Night,” and afterward, the students come together for a campus-wide Christmas party! Learn more here. Or watch this video:


Trivia!
Want to wow your friends by spouting off random March Madness facts? Check out these sites:
http://www.funtrivia.com/en/Sports/NCAA-March-Madness-4418.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Championship
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/march-madness.htm

Take a [basketball] poll. Please.

It's March, which means that the college basketball season is coming to its glorious end. So that's why we want you to take part in the following poll (as seen on page 39 of this month's issue). Enjoy! (Because we sure do enjoy hearing what you think about things!)

Let the madness begin!

The ec team loves NCAA basketball. March Madness is just one of our favorite times of year. And this year, we'd love for you to join in the fun with us. That's why we're having the ec 2010 bracket challenge. 


You can join in by clicking on that link or going directly to http://ec2010bracket.mayhem.cbssports.com/e. You'll need the password for our group, which is godlifefun.

And if you need a little background on the tournament or some help picking your bracket, here's some timely advice from the March 2010 issue of ec:

The bracket
The championship is a single elimination tournament (meaning that if you lose, you’re out), and there are 65 available slots. Many of those slots are filled by the teams who won their conference tournaments. The remainder are at-large berths and are decided by the NCAA selection committee. The committee weighs each team’s record, rankings, and RPI, a convoluted index that places heavy emphasis on the strength of the team’s schedule of games.
The bracket is divided into four regions and teams are seeded 1-16 in each region. The selection committee seeks to make the seedings as comparable to each other as possible. The two lowest-seeded teams must compete in an opening round game to make it into the tournament. Usually, these teams made it into the tournament by winning their conference championship. The winner then must play the overall No. 1 seed in the opening round.

Picking your bracket
Maybe your family and friends want you to enter their bracket challenge. Why pass up a chance at bragging rights? You don’t have to know everything about college basketball to make a good showing in a bracket challenge. Here are some tips:

•  Remember it’s not about you. You may have a favorite college, but that doesn’t mean that reality lines up with your dream of that team winning it all. Be practical and remember to check in with reality when you make your choices. (But if you have a favorite mascot, feel free to choose accordingly. One year, my carefully selected bracket was torn to pieces by a coworker who made her picks based on team colors.)

•  Trust your instincts. Each year, I complete at least three brackets and they’re all different. Generally, though, the one that’s the most correct is the first one. The lesson I learn from that is not to go back and make changes. If you’re only doing one bracket this year, fill it out and leave it.

•  Make educated choices. Even if you’re not a big NCAA basketball fan, there are teams you will recognize as basketball powerhouses. You’ll ­recognize programs who’ve made several appearances in the tourney over the last few years. Picking teams who have history in the tournament generally isn’t a bad idea. Also consider teams who are entering the tournament with momentum behind them. As you make your decisions, consider who is hot right now, which teams have been slumping lately, and which teams had to play their way into the tournament and are riding an emotional wave.