March Madness 2026
03/14/2026By Meryl Weiner
Are we excited?!?!?! March Madness is just about upon us. Prepare for madness, sadness and joy (if you win). Selection Sunday is, well, Sunday (tomorrow). If you’re a sports nerd, you’ve probably arranged your entire weekend so that you’re free to tune into the selection process at 6pm to see which 64 teams will be invited to the Big Dance. Confession: I’ll be there.
Once the teams are selected tomorrow evening, you all should be busy strategizing as to how you will fill out your brackets. Get to work! Quick recap: The Athletic Pulse, The Athletic Weekly, CBS Sports, ESPN, Sporting News, SI:AM, Barstool Sports, or The New York Post, should be your new BFFs. I’ll leave it to you to decide on which of the publications you want to rely, but it will all be for naught unless you show up in my office with $20 in hand. Cautionary note: Do not leave a $20 bill on my desk and scribble something that I’m supposed to decipher is your name (I don’t do hieroglyphics). Do not hand me a $20 bill in the café and think I will remember it’s you. I won’t. Do not pass me in the hallway and tell me the $20 bill you left on my desk is yours and think I will remember. I won’t. This is not because I’m mean, or anything. It’s just because I won’t remember. To me, all Andrew Jacksons look alike. And definitely don’t tell me you’ll pay me “later.” Even if I remember, I won’t care. “Count me in,” “sign me up,” “put me down for two” – all not working without $20. BTW, If you are entering a bracket for a friend or family member, it’s on you to cover their entry fee. How or if you are repaid is your problem. Note to family members: be nice; pay up.
As you’re filling out your brackets, be on the lookout for self-proclaimed experts who, without a shred of humility or uncertainty, proclaim not just who the champion will be, but also who will be the victims of upsets. Let me assure you – their collective track record is worse than almost anything you can come up with on your own, even if you just throw darts. That is, unless you do something really dumb, like pick a 16-seed to win it all (more on that later). Remember, this is a game that does require some thought; meaning, this would be a good time to hang out at a sports bar; have a drink there or just eat the free pretzels, but pay attention to what the regulars are saying. If you have an old sports-minded friend with whom you’ve lost touch, pocket your pride and give that person a call. Read the sports pages.Another suggestion is to drive around in midtown traffic in a yellow taxi. That way you can listen to call-in radio sports shows without having to call yourself and be humiliated and excoriated by the host, but you can listen as some unfortunate caller suffers that fate. If you prefer a more casual approach to filling out your bracket, that works too. Some folks base their selections on teams from schools located in cities they’d like to visit, color of uniforms, cuteness of mascots, or size of campus protests; some nix teams from schools they applied to as seniors in high school, but to which they were not admitted. The irony is that folks who fill out their brackets based on their year-long scrutiny of the various college conferences, do no better than anyone else. I can promise you that our ultimate winners will not necessarily be the most sports knowledgeable among us. (Take it from me; I never win.) So, don’t be concerned if you have no prior basketball knowledge – you’re in good company. Here, anyway.
TIMING: You have until noon on Thursday March 19 to complete your bracket. That is when the tournament officially begins. There are two preceding days of play-in games to reduce the number of teams from 68 to 64 – the “first four,” as in the first four to be out of the tournament, but as I stated in my earlier email, this is just a revenue raiser for the NCAA and you needn’t really pay much attention to those games. You must submit your completed bracket by noon, this Thursday March 19. Word to the wise: don’t wait until the last minute to submit. The site can be difficult to access after 11:30am or so. Glitches happen; we’re not the only group registered for this tournament and “everyone” will be flooding the CBSSports website minutes before start time. Procrastinators – you’re on notice: if there’s a glitch and you don’t get in before the noon tip-off you’ll be out of the game. That has happened. That is something I cannot fix. That is a CBSSports rule. PS – There are “no backsies.” If you waited until the last minute and got locked out, I will not refund your entry fee. The rest of us thank you for fattening the Pool. Think of it as tough love.
SCORING: This is one of those arbitrary rules that Max and I have set and with respect to which we will entertain no complaints. And don’t even think about organizing a protest in the middle of the café. Correct picks in Round 1 (round of 64) are worth 1 point; correct picks are worth 2,4,8,16 and 32 points in each successive round. In addition, in the first three rounds, we will be awarding bonus points based on the number of the seed. Here’s how that works: If in round 1 you pick the no. 16 seed to beat the no. 1 seed and the no. 16 seed wins, you will get 17 points (1 for the correct pick and 16 for the seed no. of the winner). If in round 1 you pick the no. 1 seed to beat the no. 16 seed and the no. 1 seed wins, you will get 2 points (1 for the correct pick and 1 for the seed no. of the winner). More advice for newbies. Don’t get greedy: only two times in the entire eighty-plus year history of this tournament has a no. 16 seed knocked out a no. 1 seed (kudos if you know who those sorry victims were); and a no. 16 seed has never won the tournament. I like our bonus point system because it encourages some thoughtful risk taking and discourages being overly “safe” by always sticking with the favorites.
WINNING: Now, for the important news - how to win. Simple. Person with the most points wins! We actually know what “win” means and we have a day after plan for our winners. We will have lots of winners plus an award for rookie of the year. Obviously, only a first time WB player can win the rookie of the year award, which will be given to the highest finisher who has never played in the WB Pool. A WB rookie can be a centenarian, or a hustler who regularly wins NCAA brackets every year in different groups, using different names, or even Aunt Joanie, but if you never have played in the WB Pool, you’re a rookie. As a reminder, as I’ve said in prior years, I don’t award a booby prize for last place. I know other pools do it, but that just cuts against my competitive grain and rewards sports mediocrity. I hate sports mediocrity. After serious consideration, Max and I agreed that the winning splits should be, as follows: 1st place – 60% of the Pool; 2nd place – 20%; 3rd place – 10%; 4th place – 5%; and ROTY also 5%. I’m pretty sure that totals 100%. In the event the ROTY finishes in the money (that’s the top four places), he or she will relinquish his/her ROTY award – but not the self-satisfaction - and it will go to the next highest rookie finisher. No double dipping allowed. That’s another rule.
Finally, if you haven’t logged on to our CBSSports bracket site, please do so on Monday, so we can clear up any access problems and avoid panic on Thursday. We can handle pretty much any technical problems….and with good humor, but not if they all come in at tip-off time. You’d be amazed at how quickly good humor fades. And don’t forget your $20. Remember, you can sign in and register with CBSSports, but if you don’t pay the $20, I will not activate your entry. I can do that. Think how you’ll feel if you picked the champion and all the correct low-seed underdogs, but can’t win because your entry didn’t count. Also, pretty soon I will have to restrict the mailing list to players only. The non-players among us get very testy about receiving emails about a tournament they’re not in and they don’t appreciate my wit or wisdom.
Your Eager-to-Get-Started Commissioners,
Meryl and Max
