The What If? 2020 NCAA Pool

Hi, I'm Andrew. I love March Madness and Selection Sunday and still wanted to participate in a bracket pool somehow. Like many people, I'm stuck at home and social distancing and all that, so why not try to have some fun and also find a way donate to a group that will help people during the pandemic?

Click HERE for the latest results

About:

How it works: I'll put the last ESPN Bracketology into my College Hoops 2k8 game for the Xbox 360 (that's it at right), then simulate the results.

To participate: Send me $5 or however much you'd like to give via Paypal (awiseman at gmail) or Venmo and I will donate it all to Meals on Wheels. (Or you can donate yourself, just let me know you did.)

Then go to the bracket here, duplicate the "Copyable Bracket" sheet (click the little triangle), add your name and make your picks. The colors are to help show which region is which. I posted an example bracket on the second sheet.

When: The deadline to fill it out will be what the NCAA tournament tip-off would have been: Thursday, March 19 at noon ET. Then I'll start simulating the games and update you all with the results. Similar to the NCAAs it'll be half the games the first day, half the games the second day, etc. You don't need to pick who wins the play-in games (where there are two teams in one spot.)

Watch: If you want to watch along, I'll be streaming some games at https://www.twitch.tv/marionbarry2 - it's a free service, you can watch on the web or you can use the app.

FAQs:

"Why?"   Why not? I'm working from home for the forseeable future and miss basketball.
"Why Meals on Wheels?"   It's a good organization and especially needs help delivering meals now.
"Are these 2008 NCAA rosters? Won't the results be weird?"   Yeah, pretty much! That's part of the fun.
"Are you playing the games? Are the results random?"   The game uses real world attributes of the players from 2008 -- so for example Kansas may have lots of really good players while Boston U., not so much. The game will calculate the scores and stats for each game, I don't play them myself.
"Is there a prize?"   You get to say you won a 2020 bracket pool, and we're donating to charity!
"Is that Greg Oden on the cover of the game?"   Yep, sure is.

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