How to Score NCAA Brackets

The NCAA tournament, also known as March Madness, is one of the most popular events for office pools and friendly games where people attempt to predict the outcome of the tournament. In 2009, even President Barack Obama filled out a bracket in a nationally televised show. The most important part of scoring brackets is to determine how to weight the games in each round.

Instructions

    • 1

      Determine the point value of each round. A common way to score is that each progressive round is worth double the previous round. For example, first round games may be worth one point, second round games are worth two points, third round games are worth four points, quarterfinals are worth eight points semifinal games are worth 16 points and picking the winner of the finals is worth 32 points. The advantage of this scoring system is that each round has the same number of points available. For example, if you predict all of the games in the first round correctly, you would get 32 points: one point per game for 32 games. If you predict all the games in the second round correctly, you also get 32 points: two points per game for 16 games.

    • 2

      Multiply the number of correct picks made in each round by the number of points that round is worth. For example, if you correctly picked 20 first round games, eight second round games, four third round games, two quarterfinals and one semifinal, you point total would be [20 x 1] + [8 x 2] + [4 x 4] + [2 x 8] + [1 x 16] + [0 x 32] = 84 points.

    • 3

      Break any ties by having the contestants predict the number of points that will be scored in the championship game with both team. For example, if contestant A and contestant B both had 84 points from their brackets and A predicted 102 total points in the championship game and B predicted 114 points in the championship game and the final score of the game was 60-50, B would win because 110 is closer to 114.