How to Score Brackets in NCAA Basketball

During the men's and women's NCAA tournaments, many people host contests to see who can accurately predict the outcome of the games. Rooting for the teams you picked to win adds another element of excitement to the games. There are many ways to set up a scoring system, but a well-organized plan goes a long way.

Instructions

    • 1

      Prepare a set of brackets for everyone participating in the contest. There are a lot of websites that offer printable brackets. Make sure the brackets are printed in high quality to make it easy for everyone to read the team names.

    • 2

      Design a scoring system that gives points for every game predicted correctly. Avoid having a system that subtracts points for losing a game, since this will cause confusion and make it harder to grade. Adding bonuses like accurately predicting upsets could add another exciting element. Make sure you increase the point value as the tournament progresses--one point for round one, two points for round two and so forth. You might want to double the value for each successive round. Increasing point values will help separate the contestants and avoid ties at the end. Include a tiebreaker, such as predicting the score of the championship game.

    • 3

      Give the brackets with the scoring system instructions to each contestant. Make sure you do this quickly to allow contestants enough time to fill them out. Also set a deadline for when the brackets must be returned to you.

    • 4

      Print a blank bracket for yourself to fill in the winners as the games are played. You can use this bracket to help score all of the brackets.

    • 5

      Circle games predicted correctly and cross out games predicted incorrectly. When a round is finished, tally the number of circles, multiply that number by the value of a correct game in that round and write that number above the round on each bracket. For example, if the second-round point value is two and a contestant picks eight games right, he would receive 16 points (two times eight) for that round. When all rounds are finished, add the totals together to determine the winner.