How to Score Your NCAA Bracket

The NCAA basketball tournament is one of the most popular annual sporting events for people to gamble--for money, prizes or bragging rights--by filling out the brackets based on which teams they think will win each matchup. Most bracket competitions award increasing value to later rounds because you can only correctly pick later games if you have correctly picked the earlier games.

Instructions

1. Determine the scoring system that is used for your pool bracket. For example, one common scoring system doubles the points for each round: one point per correct pick for the first round, two points for each correct pick in the second round, up to 32 points for picking the champion. Another common system awards points based on the round number up to the championship: one point for the first round, two for the second round, three for the third round, four for the fourth round, five for the fifth round and 10 for the championship.

2. Determine how many games in each round you picked correctly. For example, you may have correctly picked 22 of the first-round games, 12 of the second round, six of the third round, three of the fourth round, one of the fifth round and the champion.

3. Multiply the value of the round by the games you correctly picked in that round. For example, if you used the doubling scoring system, you would multiply 22 times one for the first round, 12 times two for the second round, six times four for the third round, three times eight for the fourth round, one times 16 for the fifth round and one times 32 for the sixth round.

4. Add the values for each round to determine your total score. Using the example above, your total score would be 136.

References

• ESPN Tournament Challenge
• NCAA College Basketball Office Pools